our course according to that Providence since it is most certain that God Almighty never intends our ruine by the miseries he permits to fall upon us but rather our salvation if we bear them with conformity to his holy will But we must find the prayer adapted to this present Epistle and Gospel too else we fail of our design You will have anon the literall sense of both expounded but we must now prosecute our further aim of making it appear this prayer is as it were an abstract of them both In which holy Church would teach us how to cast our selves upon the providence of God with a perfect resignation to his divine will as who should say O God we know thou hast environed mankind with a world of internall and externall evils yet thou that art omnipotent canst remove those evils or things which are hurtfull out of our way and canst afford us all that is good and beneficiall to us since we doubt not but thy goodnesse hath a desire to save each of us and consequently hast so disposed of us in thy saving Providence as notwithstanding all the evils that environ us thy will of saving us shall not be frustrated No not maugre all the internall evils mentioned in the Epistle of our own flesh and bloud propending us to perpetuall sinne nor all the externall evils mentioned in the Gospel of ravenous wolves of false prophets who under colour of saving our souls seek to swallow them up into the mouth of hell For as against our internall evils we find helps in the Epistle domestick easie helps such as S. Paul is almost ashamed to name our own flesh and bloud captivated onely to the rule of reason and grace in like manner we find helps in the Gospel against our externall evils false prophets or teachers when we are in the Gospel taught how to distinguish them from true and safe guides by looking into their lives and works which are compared there to fruits of trees that is if their lives be good we may safely follow them if bad we must avoid them And certainly as we have no internall enemy greater then our own flesh and bloud ill regulated so we have no externall greater then false prophets ill teachers since the Lay-mens lives ought to be squared unto the lives of their spirituall leaders and when any of these are false guides it is like the corruption of the best thing which alwayes is the worst corruption O how fitly then doth holy Church to day reflecting on these internall and externall enemies or evils mind Almighty God in this prayer of that his never-failing providence when to secure us that it be not frustrated in us she bids us deprecate all those evils that may indanger it and beg all those helps that may conduce unto it Say then beloved this prayer with this relation to the Epistle and Gospel both which it sweetly summes up unto you and say it with such a fervour of spirit as it self imports that is beseeching God to looke upon us as lost souls amidst so many dangers as he hath placed us in unlesse he use his own omnipotent power to make good in us his saving Providence For then God hears best when we pray with most earnestnesse and when we cast our selves wholly upon his care and Providence which can never be frustrated The Epistle Rom. 6. v. 19. c. 19 I speak a humane thing because of the infirmity of your flesh For as you have exhibited your members to serve uncleannesse and iniquity unto iniquitie So now exhibit your members to serve justice unto sanctification 20 For when you were servants of sinne you were free to justice 21 What fruit therefore had you then in those things for which now you are ashamed for the end of them is death 22 But now being made free from sinne and become servants to God you have your fruit unto sanctification but the end life everlasting 23 For the stipends of sin death But the grace of God life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Explication 19. St. Paul calls it well a humane thing or motive when he moves us to piety by the argument of requiring no more care in us to serve God then we used to serve our selves And as by iniquity he understands all sinne so by justice he understands all virtue which doth sanctifie us 20. That is to say by making sinne your master you had cast off all the yoke of duty you ow to justice the mistresse under whom you ought to serve God So free to justice means slavery to injustice in this place which is a very ill freedome indeed 21. 'T is clear enough we reap no fruit from sinne but shame and death 22. As clear it is that when we renounce the bondage we were in to sinne we then become servants to God and have for the present fruit of our service sanctity and for the future an eternall and blissfull life 23. That is to say the naturall and due reward of sin is death but life eternall is not so due to Saints because it is a huge grace of God that they obtain heaven when they have done all they can to gain it And in this place the Apostle calls it grace or a reward given to virtue by the singular favour and mercy of God And he calls this grace life everlasting because under the notion of life he includes all that is good and happy and because he will confront it with death which is the reward of sinne to make it more gratefull by being compared to so ungratefull an opposite as death is unto life The Application 1. IT is evident S. Paul in this place speaks to the Lay-people amongst the Romans not to the Church-men for he requires a farre greater perfection of them then of the Layity to whom he indulgeth here as much as humane frailty can expect when he makes the Infirmity of their flesh the strength of his argument to perswade them to the fruits of the spirit their sanctification by the works of charity For without charity there can be no saintity 2. As therefore all sins whatsoever are reduced to the works of the flesh so all virtues are reduced to the works of charity which is the spirit of God working in us counter to the flesh that still producing slavery shame death and damnation this freedome confidence life everlasting and salvation 3. Now in regard Almighty God hath made no flesh at all of his spirituall counsels and in regard we see his wisdome hath so ordained that the life of man is a perpetuall warfare between the spirit and the flesh as this Epistle tells us from the first to the last of it and lastly in regard he hath provided us one sole Chieftain sufficient to quell all the enemies of the flesh his holy grace his love his charity which alone is able to secure souls from all the assaults of their triple enemies the world the flesh and
eternall glory and by our cooperating with him give us the rewards of his own operations in us whom he makes labour in his vineyard here a while that he may set us in eternall rest at his own heavenly table where though he be pleased to delight in us yet we shall be the onely gainers by enjoying him for he gets nothing but to be content that we get all by being but willing to present our selves to him as the humane subjects wherein he is pleas'd to produce the divine work of our salvations while he is satisfi'd to call us his fruit that he may be our food for all eternity Thus we are taught in the prayer above and may saying it with the same spirit that made it saint our selves as is desir'd we should by the holy Ghost who gave us this sainting prayer for that holy purpose FINIS On VVhitsunday The first Prayer O God who on this day hast taught the hearts of the Faithful by the Illumination of the holy Ghost grant unto us in the same spirit to relish those things that are right and ever to rejoyce in his Consolation The Secret SAyntifie we beseech thee O Lord our offered gifts and mundifie our hearts by the Illustration of the Holy Ghost The post-Communion LEt the infusion of the Holy Ghost O Lord purifie our hearts and fertilize them by the inward aspersion of his heavenly dew On Trinity Sunday The first Prayer ALmighty everlasting God who hast granted to thy servants in confession of the true Faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of Majestie to adore unity we beseech thee heartily that in the firmnesse of the same Faith we may ever be defended from all adversity The Secret SAyntifie we beseech thee our Lord God by the invocation of thy holy name the Hoste of this oblation and render us thereby unto thy self an eternal present The post-Communion GRant O Lord God that the receiving of this Sacrament and the confession of the sempiternal Holy Trinity and of the undivided unity thereof may avail us to the health both of our body and soul On the first Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God the strength of those that trust in thee be mercifully present to our prayers and because without thee mortal infirmity is of no ability grant the assistance of thy grace that in doing what thou dost command we may please thee both in word and will The Secret VOuchsafe appeased we pray thee to accept of these our offerings dedicated to thee O Lord and grant that unto us they may afford perpetual help The post-Communion BEing filled with so great gifts grant O Lord we beseech thee that while we receive these wholsome boones we may never cease from praising thee On Sunday within the Octaves of Corpus Christi being the second after Pentecost The first Prayer MAke us O Lord equally to have both a continual fear and love of thy holy name because thou dost never leave them destitute of thy government whom thou doest instruct in the solidity of thy Love The Secret MAy this oblation sacred to thy name purifie us O Lord we beseech thee and from day to day carry us to such actions as conduce unto our heavenly life The post-Communion NOw that we have received thy sacred gifts we beseech thee O Lord that together with frequenting this mysterie the effect of our salvation may increase On the third Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God who art the Protectour of those that hope in thee without whom nothing is valid nothing is holy multiply we beseech thee over us thy mercy that thou being our ruler thou our guide we may so passe by the temporal goods of this world as not to loose the eternal of the next The Secret LOok we beseech thee O Lord upon the offerings of thy suppliant Church and grant that what we are to receive may by perpetual sanctification prove unto the health of thy believing people The post-Communion MAy thy holy things O Lord received quicken us and prepare us being expiated for thy everlasting mercy On the fourth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer GRant us O Lord we beseech thee that by thy order our course in this world may be peaceably directed and that thy Church may enjoy a quiet devotion The Secret BE pacified O Lord we beseech thee having received our oblations and propitiously compell unto thee our even rebellious wills The post-Communion MAy the received mysteries O Lord purifie us and by their bounty defend us On the fifth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God who hast prepared invisible good things for those that love thee infuse into our hearts the desire of thy love that loving thee in all things and above them all we may attain unto thy promises which surpasse even all our desires The Secret BE O Lord propitious upon our supplications and take unto thee benignely these offerings of thy servants of both sexes that what every one hath presented in honour of thy name may profit all of us to our salvation The post-Communion WHom thou O Lord hast filled with thy heavenly gifts grant we beseech thee that we may be cleansed from our hidden sinnes and delivered from the snares of our enemies On the sixth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God of powers to whom all belongs that is best ingraft in our breasts the love of thy holy name and grant in us the increase of Religion that thou mayest nourish those things which are good and being so nourished maintain them by the practise of pietie The Secret TAke unto thee O Lord benignely these oblations of thy people and be propitious upon our supplications and that no ones desires be frustrate no ones request in vain grant we beseech thee that what we ask faithfully we may obtain efficaciously The post-Communion WE are O Lord full with thy gifts we beseech thee grant that we may be cleansed by their effect and defended by their help On the seventh Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God whose providence is so disposed as it never can be frustrated remove we humbly beseech thee all things that are hurtfull and grant whatsoever may be beneficiall unto us The Secret O God who hast concluded the diversity of the legall hosts under the perfection of one sacrifice receive the same from thy devout people and sanctifie it as thou diddest the offerings of Abel that what every one tenders thee in honour of thy Majesty may avail to the health of us all The post-Communion MAy thy medicinall operation clemently free us from our perversities and bring us to those things that are right On the eighth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer GRant us O Lord we beseech thee propitiously the spirit of thinking and doing what is right that as we cannot be without thee so we may live unto thee The Secret REceive O Lord we beseech thee what of thy
bounty we bring unto thee that these sacred mysteries by the operative power of thy grace may sanctifie us in the conversation of this present life and lead us to eternall joyes The post-Communion BE O Lord unto us this heavenly mystery a reparation both of soul and body that whose worship we perform his effect we may feel On the ninth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer LEt the ears of thy mercy O Lord be open to the prayers of thy suppliants and to the end thou mayst grant the things desired to those that ask make them ask such things as to thee are pleasing The Secret GRant unto us O Lord we beseech thee that we may worthily frequent these mysteries because as often as the commemoration of this Hoste is celebrated the work of our Redemption is exercised The post-Communion VVE pray O Lord that the communion of thy Sacrament may confer purity and give unto us unity On the tenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer O God who doest manifest thy Omnipotence most of all by pardoning and taking pitty multiply upon us thy mercy that we running unto thy promises thou maist make us partakers of thy Heavenly Treasures The Secret BE the consecrated sacrifices rendered unto thee O Lord which thou hast granted us so to be offered in honour of thy name that withall thou hast allowed them to be remedies unto us The post-Communion VVE beseech thee our Lord God that whom thou dost not cease to repair with divine Sacraments thou wilt not deprive them of thy favours being as thou art benigne On the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer ALmighty everlasting God who out of the abundance of thy pity doest exceed as well the merits of thy suppliants as their desires pour out thy mercy upon us that thou maist forgive what our conscience is afraid of and add even what our prayers dare not presume to ask The Secret LOok we beseech thee O Lord propitiously upon our service that what we offer may be to thee an acceptable gift and to our frailty a support The post-Communion MAy we find O Lord we beseech thee by the receiving thy Sacrament help of soul and body that beeing in both preserved we may glory in the plenitude of the heavenly remedy On the twelfth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer OMnipotent and most mercifull God from whose bounty it proceedeth that of thy faithful people thou art worthily and laudably served grant unto us we beseech thee that we may runne unto thy promises without offence The Secret LOok we beseech thee O Lord propitiously upon the hosts which on thy holy altars we offer unto thee that giving us pardon they may also give honour unto thy Name The post-Communion LEt the holy participation of this mystery quicken us O Lord we beseech thee and equally give unto us expiation and defence On the thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer ALlmighty and everlasting God give unto us the increase of Faith Hope and Charity and that we may deserve to obtain what thou doest promise make us love what thou doest command The Secret BE propitious O Lord we beseech thee unto thy people and to their offerings that appeased by this oblation thou both pardon us and grant us our requests The post-Communion HAving O Lord received the heavenly Sacraments we beseech thee let them avail us to the increase of our eternall Redemption On the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer KEep we beseech thee O Lord thy Church with perpetuall propitiation and since without thee humane mortality faileth let it alwayes by thy help be withdrawn from such things as are hurtfull and directed to those that are saving The Secret GRant unto us we pray thee O Lord that this wholsome offering may be a purgation of our sinnes and a propitiation of thy power The post-Communion LEt thy Sacraments O God alwayes cleanse us and bring us to the effect of our eternall salvation On the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer LEt thy continual mercy O Lord both cleanse and defend thy Church and because without thee it cannot stand securely be it alwayes governed by thy bounty The Secret LEt thy Sacraments O Lord keep us and alwayes defend us from the assaults of the devil The post-Communion VVE beseech thee O Lord let the operation of thy heavenly gift possesse our minds and bodies that not our sense in us but continually the effect of thy said gift may prevent us On the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer LEt thy Grace we beseech thee O Lord alwayes go before and follow us and make us continually intent unto good works The Secret CLeanse us O Lord we beseech thee by the effect of this present sacrifice and mercifully work in us that we may be sharers of the same The post-Communion VVE pray thee O Lord to purifie benignely our souls and to renew them with thy heavenly Sacraments that consequently we may have both present and future helps for our bodies On the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer GRant we beseech thee O Lord that thy people may flye Diabolical contagion and follow thee the onely God with pure intention The Secret O Lord we humbly beseech thy Majestie that these holy things which we bear about us may divest us of our present and future offences The post-Communion BY thy sanctifications Almighty God be our sins cured and may eternal remedies accrue unto us On the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer LEt O Lord the operation of thy mercy direct our hearts because without thee we cannot please thee The Secret O God who by the venerable commerce of this sacrifice dost make us partakers of thy onely and highest Deity grant we beseech thee that as we acknowledge thy truth so we may by our behoofeful comportment attain the same The post-Communion WE give thee thanks O Lord for being nourished by thy sacred bounty beseeching thy mercy that thou wilt make us worthy to partake thereof On the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer ALmighty and mercifull God vouchsafe propitiously to exclude all things which are adverse unto us that being set at liberty both in mind and body we may with free souls execute those things that appertain unto thee The Secret THese offerings which we make in the sight of thy Majestie grant O Lord we beseech thee that they may be saving unto us The post-Communion MAy thy medicinall operation O Lord clemently free us from our perversities and make us alwayes adhere to thy commands On the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The first Prayer VVE beseech thee O Lord thou being pacified grant unto thy faithfull people pardon and peace that they may be both clean from all offences and serve thee with secured souls The Secret WE pray thee O Lord to let these mysteries afford us heavenly remedy and to purge away the sinnes of our heart The post-Communion THat we may be
mans day that is of humane judgement in a point of Spirit for thus the day of man is often taken as by Jeremiah it was Chap. 17. v. 16. when being derided by the people who contemned his Prophecies he cryed out Thou knowest O Lord I desire not the dayes the applause of men nor regard their judgements of me Suffice it I have delivered unto them what thou hast to me revealed So in this sense S. Paul here cares not for the judgement of the Corinthians whether they like his preaching or not but is content that he tells them the genuine sense of his Lord and Master Christ Jesus and yet least he may by this speech seem arrogant See how hee takes off all suspition of vanity in himself by what follows saying Though I am not troubled O Corinthians at what you thinke or judge of me yet neither am I so vain as to presume I am without fault and so I neither will nor dare to judge my self this place might disswade Heretikes from presuming they are certain of their future salvation and of their being here in the state of grace if themselves thinke so assuredly S. Paul might better justifie himself and yet we see he does not indeed he dares not doe it 4. While in this next verse he saith though I am not guilty particularly of any infidelity vanity or ostentation in preaching for still he prosecutes that sense which yet generally may be understood of any sin neverthelesse I am not justified therein he will not justifie himself but he that judgeth me is our Lord and to him I must leave it to judge who not onely sees and knows all hearts but perfectly knows them too that is sees further and clearer into all mens hearts than any one man can see into his own 5. Here the Apostle referrs not onely his own judgement of himself and of his Ministery but even the judgements of all men whatsoever to the latter day of Doom for then and not till then Our Lord shall come and inlighten the hidden things of darkness by laying all things open and this not onely as some Hereticks will have it whether we believe right or wrong but also whether we doe good or bad deeds according to our Faith For so by the plurality of hidden things here mentioned to be revealed then is clearly meant in those words of the Apostle insomuch that Hereticks fondly pretend unto a certainty of their rectitude in Faith more than they can doe unto a rectitude in their works and therefore flatter themselves that be their works the counsels of their hearts what they will yet since it is by Faith men are justified and since they pretend to know certainly that they doe rightly beleeve they therefore scruple not to sâ—cure themselves of salvation be their lives never so bad being their Faith as they say to their certain knowledge is right For the Holy Ghost hath taught us a contrary doctrine to this presumption in Ecclesiastes Chap. 9. v. 1. A man knoweth not whether he be worthy of love or hatred So Prov. 20.9 Who can say my heart is clean So Job 9 21. If I bee simple or Innocent yet my soul knoweth it not So Jer. 17. v. 9. Wicked is the heart of man and inscrutable unlesse to God alone To conclude the sentence of Judgement shall not onely passe upon our Faith whether that be right or wrong but upon our works the Counsels of our hearts for every one shall in that day receive according to his works and Luke 20. we receive what our works deserve and in the mean time till the day of generall judgement come the Apostle forbids to judge each other since neither he nor any man can securely and rightly judge himself but then look who hath done and deserved well the praise shall be to every one of God though mistaking men have judged those perhaps worthy of blame whom God shall declare to be praise-worthy because he finds them to have been faithfull to the Ministery or trust which he reposed in them So here we see from first to last St Paul his true sense in this place is upon fidelity in the dispensers of the Mysteries of God and declares that no man but God can judge in that particular as being an office not appertaining to men but to God himself and unto him alone I must here advertise you that the Apostle in the next Verse declares that he useth his own and Apollo's name but figuratively thereby to represent to the Christians their faults in pretending to have one more light of grace than another or to be one better able than another to understand the Scriptures shewing it is a thing they ought as little to presume of in themselves as to censure whether he or Apollo did more faithfully perform the trust of God reposed in them by their ministery of dispensators of his Mysteries The Application 1. THe closing Advent season claimes a due regard in this dayes service so the prayer begins alluding unto that and ends besides with the accustomary reference to the Epistle of the day How like the out-cryes of the ancient Prophets is the stile of Holy Churches prayer to day They cryed out thus O Wisedome O Adonai O Root of Jesse O Key of David O Rising Sun O King of Nations O Emmanuel c. Come and save us thou that art our Lord God And we promising all these exclamations pray as above O Lord we beseech thee raise up thy power and with thy mighty vertue come away to our succour c. meaning all the power and all the Vertue included in those Attributes of Wisedome Adonai King and Saviour which the Prophets gave him as above 2. And least our sins do chase away the coming Jesus see this Epistle points us to the Priests of holy Church as to the Ministers of Christ and dispensers of the Mysteries of God Meaning of the Holy Sacraments that blot out sin and give us grace to bid our Saviour welcome 3. Hence we conclude the Pastors and the People are admonished to buckle to their severall Devoirs to day these in administring these in receiving of the Holy Sacraments and yet each having done his dutie neither to presume he hath done well enough but both referring of themselve to God his Judgements for the future and expecting his mercies for the present And to pray as Holy Church above appoints That our sinnes doe not retard the coming of his mercy towards us The Gospel Luke 3. ver 1. c. 1 ANd in the fifteenth year of the Empire of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate being governour of Jewrie and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee and Philip his brother Thtrarch of Iturea and the Countrie of Trachonitis and Lysanias Tetrarch of Abilina 2. Vnder the High Priests Annas and Caiphas the word of our Lord was made upon John the son of Zacharie in the desart 3. And he came into all the countrie of Jordan preaching the Baptism
and this to externall and temporall government for that of Internall and Spirituall is the Pastors not the Deacons office which office chiefly belongs indeed to Archdeacons for though his personall care bee mixt with the spirituall Regimen of his Parishioners yet it is his office to see his Deacons carefully administer this Temporall governement wherein he doth imploy them The perfection of attending the Sick or Hospitalls or of shewing mercy consisteth in alacrity of Spirit in cheerfulness that thereby they may oveâ—come their own Tedium or wearinesse in so laborious an office and by the cheerfulness of their own looks exhilarate and comfort those who are sick and comfortlesse and that by the affability of their words they may incourage the sick to believe they are not displeased with the unpleasing attendants on diseases such as are nastie smells horrid spectacles of their sores or the like and so more confidently to beg their helping hands according to that of the Wiseman in Ecclus 35. v. 11. In all thy gifts to others let thy countenance bee cheerfull and all this to Churchmen hitherto 9. See how the Apostle begins the Lay-mans gift of Ministery with a recommendation to him of dilection or love of his neighbour as the principall vertue that must render his ministery acceptable to God and man Such dilection as S. Iohn Epist 1. Chap. 3. v. 18. mentions saying Let us not love in words onely nor in language but in deed and in truth which place will be explicated at large on the Sunday within the Octaves of Corpus Christi Whereunto is here added a hatred of evill in those wee love and a speciall adhesion or cleaving to their good example if any such be given by them for so far shall we advance in imbracing vertue as we proceed in the detestation or hatred of vice 10. As naturally Brothers love one another so all Christians being brothers in Christ their common Father the Apostle here requires the love that intercedes between them though of a supernaturall order should follow the rule of brotherly love which is naturall but when hee exhorts to a mutuall preventing one another in this fraternall dilection theâ—e he elevat s the course of nature which is dull and raiseth it to that of Grace which is quick and nimble brooking no delayes not expecting to be first obliged but obliging before wee receive any other obligation thereunto than what our Christian duty recommendeth to us indeed commands us to use as for point of love Though as for preventing each other with honour that being an Art of Heroick perfection it is here onely counselled and not commanded 11. Here Governours are exhorted to a carefulness to a sedulitie or diligence in their offices least by their sloath any under their charge perish and to be boyling as it were with a fervour of Spirit and devotion towards acts of charity not simpering or standing still as if the fire of love in their souls were quite extinguished and did not propend them to rise upon all occasions administred of doing good to others day or night The marks of this fervor are first that our minds be wholly attent to the good action in hand next that we covet the doing it as much as any other can desire to have it done Lastly that we continue constant in such actions and doe not flaccess or grow weary of well doing and this must be with regard to God as if in serving man wee served God in man for else our service might be servile and not filiall performed more for fear than love serving time rather than eternity whereas if we make it a part of our duty to God that we serve man then it will bee boyling and fervent as it ought because it riseth from a supernaturall heat or motive more active than any naturall one can be 12. The hope that must cause our rejoyceing to be accomplisht ought to be that of the Heavenly joyes for the higher we make the expectation of our reward the more alacrity shall we have in doing well and therefore Christian joy ought to be of a higher strain than any the present or future emoluments of this world can suggest into us but such should be our joy and hopes as the Prophet David speaks of Psalm 4. ver 10. calling it a singular puesto that we are placed in or an expectation of singular hopes not ordinarily or ever indeed here arrived unto but laid up for us in the magazine of Heaven where the least of all rewards are infinite and besides unattainable if our joy here at any time be such as may not hope for eternall joyes to accompany the same but if such then our vain wordlly joyes or felicities all of them that are truly vain would be laid aside and we should rather content our selves with patient suffering which the Apostle recommends after he had taken away in his former words all vain joyes than with shaking these sufferings off to seek contents or comforts from this world which we could not hope to enjoy in the next but making it our joy to suffer and bringing that suffering to the perfection of an incessant or instant Prayer by referring all our actions to Gods Honour and Glory for in so doing we shall follow close the counsell here given us in this Verse of persisting in Prayer and the like given by Saint Paul 1 Thes 5. ver 17. Pray without intermission and of Saint Luke commanding such Prayer chap. 18. ver 1. while he said we must alway pray 13. Some understand this place as meant by praying for our own or our neighbours necessities and in so praying availing our selves and our neighbours of the Saints intercessions so as by the necessities of Saints are meant here their memories of us which we doe want Thus Saint Ambrose thus Origen thus Saint Hierom all after the Greek text who take memory here in a double sense first as to availe our selves of our remembring the Saints examples given us here and the reward of glory given to them in Haven to incite our selves to the like sanctity in hope of the like reward secondly as we availe our selves of their remembring us while we implore their aide by making memory of them in our services as in the Canon of the Mass is dayly done In these words Communicating and revering the memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the holy Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul c yet the more literall sense is that of the Latine Text alluding to our relieving others here or in Purgatory in their necessity the one by Prayer the other by Almes and these as Saints we are bid Communicate unto or relieve that is as presuming they are so rather than judging them to be Sinners because their name at least of Christians is Holy what ere their Lives are so by Communicating is here meant exchanging our workes of Mercy for their workes of Merit who are in want Pursuing hospitality that is
Hell or an indefinite number meant by this definite of seven for so the malice of the Jews imports when it grew more inraged against the Son of God then all the devils of Hell alone could have expressed had not the more hellish Jew concurred to encrease the same Blessed God! how truly doth this Verse close saying These devils dwell there since we are told the refractory Jew shall never be dispossessed absolutely of this devil till the day of Judgement when Jew and Gentile shall both make up one Church of Christ though but for a little time yet sufficient to verifie the Oracle of Truth There shall be one sold and one shepherd And thus literally we may expound these three Verses mystically the recess and access of this foul Fiend is verified when Baptismal Grace first cast a single devil out of our Souls guilty onely of single Original sin and he by our reiterated actual sins returns again with his increased numbers his sevensold Fiends the seven deadly Sins or some such graceless rabble who made the last of this man worse then the first God send he dwell not in us till the Day of our private Doom as certainly he will unless we cast the waters of Contrition on him to quench the fire of his Malice both against God and us and so smoak him out of his Mansion house by making it a Temple for the God he hates when it is perfumed with the incense of Devotion and adorned with all varieties of Vertues 28 29. It seems there was a huge energy in Christ his delivering himself upon this subject when a pious woman ravisht as it were with admiration of his Sanctity and solidity of discourse cryed out praising and magnifying not onely him but even the womb that bare him and the paps that gave him suck not without special Providence of God ordaining her speech to the praise of the Mother not the Father to shew he had no Father as he was man 30. This did not deny but it was indeed a great blessing for the virgin Mary to have had her Saviour in her wombe but yet it tels us both she and others are more blessed to have him in their Souls and so to make their Soules Mothers to the Words-Spirit or of Spirituall Words is to be much more honourable then to have the word-flesh in their bodily wombe or to be the Spirituall Parent of Christ bringing forth the fruit of his Gospell then the corporall bringing forth his flesh and bloud so the word of God is valued above the body of Christ his Spirit is better then his Flesh And the reason is that to bee Mother of God was a grace gratis given not making gracefull but to heare and keep the word of God is an internall grace rendring one acceptable againe to be Gods Mother did not suffice to save her but to heare and keep Gods word doeth the one proper to her the other common to all Christians The Application 1. WE heard in the first Sundayes Epistle of Lent the Priests were bound to Preach unto us this holy time as in Catholick Countries they do every day now we are particularly minded of our duty to heare them Preach as a work appertaining to the Integrity of our holy Fast And lest we should thinke we had comply'd with our obligation in this particular by a bare hearing of Sermons in Lent see our Saviour adds another branch to integrate this duty namely to keep the word we heare that is to conserve it in our hearts by meditating thereupon and by doing as the Preacher tels us we are bound to do for those only that so heare as they also keep this holy word are they our Saviour proclaimes to be blessed Soules 2. Now as this Active word of God cannot lye still in our hearts so it was fit to day to tell us of casting out a Dumb Devill thereby to minde us we are bound to speak forth the praises of Almighty God this holy Time of Lent as wel as to heare his sacred word delivered to us 3. And because we are not silent only out of sloth to speak forth the praises of God but sometimes out of shame are dumb and will not speake the guilt of some foule sin that lies upon our soules when yet we are bound in confession to discover it at which time we are truly possessed with a Dumbe Devill who by the story of this Gospell is not to be removed but by maine force therefore the most forcible of other words that we call divine and the mighty finger of God himselfe are said to be the only meanes to cast this devil out who lest he enter in to the disturbance of our holy aimes We fitly pray as above to keep him out and so to be defended from him On the fourth Sunday in Lent The Antiphon John 6. v. 3. IEsus therefore went up to the mountaine and there he sate with his Disciples Vers To his Angels c. Resp That in all c. The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that we who through the merit of our own actions are afflicted by the consolation of thy grace may be comforted The Illustration SEe how the Lenten Letter of our Holy Fast is silently carryed down the mysticall streame thereof in this present Prayer for why doe we now afflict our bodies with abstinence but because we have justly merited that punishment to be inflicted on us through the merits or demerits rather of our sinfull actions more it is to be wondered how we dare close this Prayer with a Petition of consolation how we can hope to be comforted by his holy grace with whom we are so deeply in disgrace as to lye actually under the lash of his correction but here is the difference betweene Almighty God and man the latter never mixeth favors with his frownes of the former the royall prophet tels us that even whilest he is angry he is mindfull of mercy towards us so hence it is we begge this consolation of his grace to be our comfort even while we are under the affliction due to the demerits of our actions and this with reason because every action that is absolutely ours is mixt with sin and so merits punishment but this obedientiall action of our Holy Fast is rather an act of grace then of nature and thence it is we presume to begge the comfort of that grace which doth enable us to this act of pennance But we have yet a harder taske in hand what relation is there in this Prayer to the Epistle and Gospel of the day where is there here a word of Agar and Sarah Abrah Jsaac or Jsmael Sinai or Sion where a Syllable of a miracle of the multiplication of five loaves and two fishes into food sufficient for above five thousand persons yet these are the Subjects of the Epistle and Gospel and we must finde report to these as well as to the time of Lent in the Prayer above or
though there were no priority of time wherein the Synagogue was existent before Moses the first-borne thereof nor of the Church before Christ the first-borne of her So here we see it is not inconsistent that Christ be both the Father and the childe of the Church the childe as the first borne of it in the sight of God the Father as the first erector of it in the sight of man 28. And from hence floweth the genuine sence of this next verse wherein the Apostle doth not onely meane that we Christians are Brothers to each other but that we have yet an honour farre transcending this namely to be even the Brethren of Christ Jesus so that he is a child as as well as we are the children of promise and consequently he and we are brethren being borne both of one promising parent Almighty God out of the barren wombe of Sara he only having this prerogative to be the first-borne of Sara and so Abrahams heire but we as being his brethren by vertue of the same promise are his coheires 29. This verse alludes to what we read Gen. 21. v. 8. of the jesting or playing of Jsmael so familiarly with Jsaac at the banquet which Abraham made when Isaac the younger brother was weaned that Sara knowing it was her Sonne Jsaac who must be heir to his Father Abraham complained to him not onely of the boldnesse of Ismael and of his sawcy familiarity with Jsaac which was a figure of the Jewes mocking of Christ and of false Churches scoffing at the true one but also of Agar his Mothers impudence not to reprehend her Slave-borne Son for his boldnesse with his Free-borne Brother whereupon Agar and Ismael were turned out of doores by Abraham as the Synagogue and Jewes were out of Christs Church for by Son of the flesh is here meant Ismael and by the Son of the Spirit the Apostle in this place meanes Israel as was said before adding that this quarrel betweene those two brothers continues stil in us so long as the flesh rebels against the spirit in man or so long as false Churches arise and persecute the true one 30. Then and not tiil then shall the Son of the Bond-woman be cast out by Christians as well as the Synagogue was by Christ himselfe according to Saint Pauls meaning here when there shall be in the worlds end but one stock and one shepheard though even now we that are children of the true Church must cast out of our communion in spirituals at least those that are of false Churches for they cannot with us inherit the kingdome of heaven what claime soever they lay unto it by feigned Sanctity or pretended legitimacy of birth unto that inheritance 31. Note though here the Apostle tels us for our comfoâ—t that we true Christians whereby is understood onely Catholikes who are of the true Christian religion are Sons of Sara the Free-woman that is of the remaining Church of Christ and not of Agar the abrogated Synagogue of the Jewes yet withall he mindes that we have not this Freedome this honour by right of inheritance as from our earthly or spirituall parents either but meerly as from the gratuite gift of Jesus Christ since by his holy grace it is we are adopted Children of Heaven and not by our Fathers in nature or in Spirit the Priests of the Church for as the first are no way able to beget us unto God so the last doe it but instrumentally as they are Vicars of Christ or dispensers of the mysteries of God and of his holy grace by meanes of the Sacraments The Application 1. THe Illustration upon this Sundayes Prayer and the explication upon this Epistle are so full and so home to the purpose of the Lenton Fast and to the end thereof our Purification that nothing will remaine now but to finde what good works now are by this Epistle taught to adde unto the Holy Fast which is not perfected without them 2. Now in regard we see this Parabolicall Epistle windes off with an Application to the Catholike Christian Redeemed from the Bondage of the Jewish Synagogue and from the slavery of sin by the merits of Christ and consequently giveth us cause of huge comfort for this redemption therefore we shall do well to joyn an Alacrity of soule unto the Lenten Fast because God loves a merry giver as a proper integrative part thereof especially on this Sunday which is called the Sunday of joy and not unfitly so when the whole Epistle runs upon the joyful Allegory between the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant by the abolition of the Jewish Synagogue 3. And yet because the motive of our joy is ever extrinsecal coming from Heaven to us out of the infinite mercy of God and no way proceeding from our selves whose every action so far forth as it is our own is demeriting and drawing punishment upon us for the sin it is in us unlesse by Gods assisting grace it be made vertuous therefore we are justly bid in our greatest comforts to acknowledge the punishments we deserve if God should ever give us our own due and consequently to mix with our Ioyes our Tears or rather never to look for any joy that we doe not first beg with sorrow for our sins to the end it may be with us as Holy David said according to the multitude of my griefes thy consolations have joy'd my soule whence it is we are taught to mix contrition with Alacrity this holy time of Lent to make our Fast compleat And that we may do this we fitly pray when this is preached to us as above The Gospel Joh. 6. v. 1 c. 1 After these things Iesus went beyond the Sea of Galilee which is of Tiberias 2 And a great multitude followed because they saw the signes which he did upon those that were sick 3 Iesus therefore went up into the mountaine and there he sate with his Disciples 4 And the Pasche was at hand the Festivall day of the Iewes 5 When Iesus therefore had lifted up his eyes and saw that a very great multitude cometh to him he saith to Philip whence shal we buy bread that these may eat 6 And this he said tempting him For himselfe knew what he would doe 7 Philip answered him two hundred peny-worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every man may take a little piece 8 One of his disciples Andrew the Brother of Simon Peter saith to him 9 There is a boy here that hath five barley loaves and two fishes but what are these among so many 10 Jesus therefore saith make the men sit down And there was much grasse in the place The men therefore sat downe in number about five thousand 11 Iesus therefore took the Loaves and when he had given thanks he distributed to them that sate in like manner also of the fishes as much as they would 12 And after they were filled he saith to his Disciples gather the fragments that are remaining
seen the Example of Humane Frailty in the chief Pastour of Gods Church that since the Sword of spiritual Power was put into their hands they might also have reason to shew mercy and not to retain other mens sins being penitent fiâ—ding their own were remitted upon Repentance and it was not without Reason that Christ foretold his Apostles he would rise again and appear to them in Galilee because he knew after his Death the Apostles and all the rest of his Disciples or Friends would be both afraid to meet together in Judea and that the Jews were so malicious against Christ as they would not suffer so great a number of his Disciples as Christ had above the eleven Apostles to appear amongst them much less to make assemblies Again the Apostles were most of them Galileans and so Christ knew they would be retreating to their own homes when he was gone or soon after if he rose not presently Lastly he had himself done many miracles in Galilee and therefore chose to get belief of them all at once by this one above all the rest his rising from the dead to Life again besides Galilee imports as much as transmigration and Christ passing from Death to life chose to do it in a place proper to the mystery which was yet redoubled by his appearing to multitudes at once in Galilee to shew he found the Jews no longer worthy his aboad among them and so he passed from them to the Gentiles where he had left many Disciples besides those Twelve he chose Apostles and whereof Judas was turned Apostata and dyed despairing so when the Angel said to the Maries Go tell his Disciples he meant tell all his Friends who are many in Galilee and St. Paul 1 Cor. 15. v. 6. seems to say that at the first apparition of Christ in Galilee there were more then five hundred of his Disciples or Friends and such as believed religiously of him whom therefore he rewarded by making them undoubted witnesses of this most doubtful and much controverted Truth his rising from the dead The Application 1. THe scope of all this Gospel is to prove the real Resurrection of our Blessed Lord and by that means the Immortality of Humane Souls so to wean them from their Temporal desires and plant their Loves upon Eternity the doubt if not the ignorance whereof made them embrace the Transitory Pleasures of the World and laugh at those for fools who thought of any happiness or misery to come when this life had an end by Death 2. Hence when the Apostles preach't our Saviours Resurrection it was held a scandal to the Jews and a folly to the Gentiles because it brought the tidings of Eternity to men that knew not any thing before but fleeting time and so for want of hoping in eternal Happiness by leading holy Lives fell headlong in a trice to everlasting Misery by living viciously according as the Royal Prophet said They lead their days in Jollity and in an instant they descend to Hell 3. As therefore when our Saviour died good men began to think it folly to be good because their Vertue was not able to maintain them living still So when he rose again bad men began to fear they might as well revive to misery as happiness and consequently were more easily reclaimed from Vice and brought in Love with Vertue so that Eternity we see is made a special Root of Christianity when even a desire to live eternalâ—y is held a motive strong enough to work a Sanctity into our Souls Since Holy Church makes it her rule to day that as by Christ his Resurrection the door was open to a blest Eternity so our desires thereof may be preserved in us by him that gave them to us by his prevenient Grace On White or Low Sunday The Antiphon Joh. 20. v. 26. AFter eight days the doors being shut our Lord entring in said unto them Peace be to you Alleluja Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that we who have accomplished the Pascal Feasts may retain the same in our Manners and Lives by thy bounty inabling us so to do The Illustration WE heard last Sunday the Churches Prayers were now to run in a peculiar Channel of Life-giving Waters those of the Resurrection of our Lord See therefore this days Service sliding sweetly down that stream but in this Prayer I finde a Phrase so strange as needs a gloss to make it understood though it speak plain English too for how can we retain a thing that 's past as is the Paschal Feast and yet this is it we pray for to day and not onely to retain this feast in our memories but in our manners and our lives sure then the meaning is we must retain those good desires which we besought God to prosecute in us in our last Sundays Prayer and which as by his preventing grace they were afforded us so by his continued bounty we now beg ability to continue or retain them in our manners and lives Now albeit this makes the Prayer above to be as it were a recapitulation of the last Sundays Prayer since the Octave Day is a closing up one and the self same Feast that began seven days before yet we must finde a deeper sence in this days Prayer such as petitioneth we should retain the Vertues which did occur to the accomplishment of the Paschal Feast as the good desires to those Vertues and if we look back to what those Vertues were we shall finde them to be sincerity and verity or rather in a word perfect Sanctity such as might make the old Leaven in us of sin to be White Manchet of Sanctity as if it were nothing for us to make yearly Memory of Christ his Death and Passion and of his Resurrection for in these two Mysteries consist the Paschal Feast unless our selves did remain ever dead unto sin and ever alive to God by vertue of our resurrection in his holy grace assuredly this must be the sence of our Prayer to day for this is truly to retaine in our manners and lives the Feasts of Pasche that are past when we make our selves Paschall Lambes by the Sincerity and Sanctity of our lives and manners For thus we shall first by our Faith overcome the world and next by our good works give the testimony of Gods Holy Spirit being in us which this dayes Epistle so much insisteth on as the effect of our Faith and of our Victory over the world by the same Faith And to the Gospell this Prayer is literall whilst it beggs we may retaine in us that Paschall Feast which is the whole scope of this dayes Gospell telling us how our Saviour appeared in confirmation of his Resurrection to his Apostles and in the narration of Saint Thomas his infidelity exhorting us to a firmer Faith in that and in all the other mysteries of our Redemption To conclude
Master in his passion so lest we by surprizing sloath or by sleeping in Prayer be overtaken in our other actions he puts a watchfulness before our eyes especially in Prayer as the best remedy to help us to stand upon a close guard in all our other actions and indeed the life of man especially of Christians ought to be a perpetuall watchfulness because our adversary the devil is alwayes going the round about the wals of this world like a ravenous Lyon to seeke whom he may devour asleep 1 Pet. c. 5. v 8 or which is all one not standing the sentinel of a watchfull guard against him which guard is then best when we are found upon it Praying nor is there indeed any armour more of proofe against all temptations then a watchfull Prayer 8. Yet to shew the divine vertues transcend the morall ones Saint Peter in this verse sayes but above all conserve among your selves mutuall charity by which it is evident the Apostle here speakes of charity as it imports a love to our neighbor which then is in the height when we are content to dye to doe him good Saint Bernard explicates this well in saying we are all Cosins allyed in blood meaning the blood of Christ our Father equally shed for all of us that are his children and allyes and it seemes Saint Paul ad Coloss 3. v 14. Concurres with Saint Peter in this Doctrine even in the same termes in a manner saying but above all things I have recommended be sure to have charity which is the chaine or band of perfection which our Saviour sets out in life-colours saying love one another as I have loved you and to incourage us the more to this mutuall charity the Apostle tels us it covers the multitude of sins meaning all our sins whatsoever for as Christ was said to dye for many importing all and as many shall rise in the day of Judgement intending all that then rise so by the multitude of sins is here meant all sin whatsoever since an act of perfect charity taking away affection to any one sin doth even by that meanes blot all sin out of the soule yet some will have no charity able to this effect but onely the charity of God which not onely covers but takes away all sinne from those soules whom he hath predestinated to salvation others contend it is the charity of Christ which covers in his fight the sinnes of his elected Servants by applying his passion to them and his holy grace so efficaciously as they shall by this means cease to sin but certainely neither of these senses can be that of the Apostle in this place who expresseth himself to meane mutuall charity and that is properly betweene man and man declared in Acts of mercy and goodness towards one another and this charity doth not onely cover the proper sins of them that love their neighbor but even the common sins of all their neighbors whom they love our own as we cannot love man for Gods sake but wee must love God much more and who ever loves God truly not onely covers but flyes and hates all sinne our neighbors because as hatred detects so charity hides the sinns of our neighbors as we read Hatred stirreth up strifes but charity covereth all sins Proverb 10.12 it onely remaines to tell how many wayes sinne is hidden by charity first by being quite blotted out as Saint Mary Magdalenes were to whom much all were forgiven because she loved much Luk. c. 7. v. 47. Next by palliating when we out of charity excuse and make the best of mens actions Thirdly when we doe not onely excuse them but actually binde them up as Chirurgeons doe soares to cure them so we doe when besides the excuse we make for our neighbors sins we further oblige them by doing good unto them for the ill they have done to us and this is an efficacious way indeed to cure their soares of sinne as well as to cover them and by binding them to us we do as it were our selves take upon us their sins and so God looking on our good sees not their bad whom we have rendered grateful to him for our sakes as Christ did render us all grateful to his heavenly Father when he took our sins upon him and thus covered us from his wrath and fury Lastly then we perfectly cover our neighbors sinne when we doe not onely heale the wound thereof but heale it so close so perfectly that no scar remaines no memory is in us of the wrong he did us nor is suffered if we can help it to be in any other of like wrongs done to them 9. By being hospitable without murmuring he meanes we should be so loving to all as we doe not murmur that wee are oppressed with the number of the needy or poore that want our help and the Apostle here reflects particularly on the niggardly mindes of the Inhabitants of Pontus who were extreame narrow in their almes and would extend the little they gave to very few whereas he would have charity large and extended to all 10. This verse shewes how large our charity should be when we are bid to give almes or doe good to others according to the proportion of grace that we receive from God and by grace is here understood not that which justifies the single man to God but that which is gratis given to us and so must be gratis communicated to others good and profit not to our own end for it is avarice so to give as we aime at receiving more from others then we part with from our selves and the very words of the Text are against self ends while they bid us administer to one another which is quite opposite to taking for our selves againe as Gods graces to us are manifold so must our administration of them to others be else we cannot give as we receive which yet was the first rule of this verse telling us how to give 11. Here the Apostle summes up all the kindes of charity under two the one in words the other in deeds or the one preaching teaching exhorting the other giving almes visiting the sick or doing all other workes of mercy corporal and here we see the rule that preachers are tyed unto of speaking not their own but the word of God or what the holy Ghost shal dictate not what humane fansie shal suggest and we see in the primitive Church the Holy Ghost inspired some to exhort others to sing hymnes of praise others to prophecy and each one this to doe with humility and meekness not with pride and ostentation with zeale and fervour not tepidly or dully according to that of David Thy word O Lord is very hot even as fire and what by office the preacher is to doe out of charity the people are to imitate and as they heare nothing from the Priest but what belongs to God so all their conversation should be of God and of heavenly things thereby to
there are of Justifying grace inhabiting within us The first if we perfectly hate sin The second if we mortifie the flesh The third if we have zeal to our neighbours good such as St. Paul had saying Who is sick and I am not distempered with him also 2 Cor. 11. insomuch that here St. John presumes to say he that loves not remaines in death that is if when he is bound to shew his love either to God or his neighbour he doth it not he remaines in death in the guilt at least of that past sin which he committed by omitting to do his duty when he was bound to do it out of which guilt since there is no going but by the help of grace therefore he is said to remain in death untill by an Act of love he revives from the death of that guilt which he remained in by not loving when he was bound to do it Nay the death of our body is but a shadow of death to that of our soules so the Apostle needs not scruple to say men living in sin remain in death because they are truly dead to grace and glory as long as they continue in their sin be they never so vigorouslâ— alive in body 15. He is a murderer of his own soul because as was said above he that loves not remains in death Where note not to love is esteemed to be as bad as to hate and consequently who hates his neighbour actually kills himself and in effect his neighbour too though not in Act not unlike him that coveting his neighours wife is an Adulterer in will though not in fact Yet others will have this hatred to be onely murder in disposition not reduced into act but who so loves danger shall perish in it and therefore to dally in such dispositions is to indanger at least perishing in them Let no man wonder the Apostle should say he that murdereth hath not life everlasting in him when he that is in this world freest from all sinne hath not here everlasting life abiding in him whence it follows by life everlasting is here understood that life of grace whereunto everlasting life and glory is due whereof none can have so much as a hope so long as he remains in hatred or murder as above 16. Not content to instance in lesse then the highest perfection the Apostle here tells us what is perfect charity perfect dilection to lay down our lives for our neighbours souls as Christ did his for ours But not so as we can loose our spirituall life to gain the like life to our neighbour no this is against the rule of charity which ever regards it self but reserving our spirituall we may loose our temporall lives to gain our neighbours souls And not onely may but are here exhorted thereunto if we say commanded the text will bear it in case we see our neighbours soul in danger unlesse we venture our lives And in some cases men may and are bound to hazzard at least their own to save anothers life as first a souldier may rather choose to die in the place then yield to his enemy the advantage of that ground his commander trusted him to defend the like is of a citizen in defense of the whole city for the part is not of equall regard with the whole so Samson did as we reade Judg. 16. who oppressed himself with the ruine of a house thereby to oppresse the Philistines also and to save the people of God from their captivity and though they are not many examples of obligation yet we have many of election shewing divers have died to save the life of their friend divers have rendered themselves captive to redeem others from bondage divers have lost their lives to preserve the chastity of others as esteeming the life of grace in their neighbour more pretious then that of nature in themselves 17. Having shewed in the precedent verse that we are bound in some cases to poure out our blouds for our neighbours no marvell if here it be concluded he cannot have charity who seeing his neighbour in necessity shuts up the bowels of his mercy from him and will not allow him any relief And yet because this is so usuall a thing therefore to confound those who have such stony hearts the Text compells them to the necessity of doing the lesser upon all occasions by shewing before they were obliged to a much greater act of charity upon some particular emergencies as who should say though it be hard to lay down your life for another yet it must be easie to lay down your purse or some equivalent relief if you will merit the name of a Christian and give proof by your acts of mercy that the authour of mercy is within you and that your self do live spiritually by relieving your neighbour corporally Whence most Divines hold a man is bound in conscience to give alms more or lesse and that not onely in extream but even in common reall necessities as of meat drink clothing housing or the like grounded in that of Eccles chap. 4. v. 1. Child defraud not the poor man of that Alms which is due unto him from thee for indeed the portion of the poor is in the rich mans hands and God gives riches to the end rich men may have the merit of poverty by giving their goods away and poor men the benefit of riches by what they receive out of the surplus of others And because it is too long for my present purpose to inlarge upon this point I referre the reader to the fourth book of Salvianus dedicated to the Catholick Church wherein he shews how great a sinne it is for Church-men to inrich their kindred with the Churches treasure and for rich persons of the world to starve Christ in the persons of the poor while they feast the devil in the excesses of the rich by leaving their estates to such as will not make at least pious uses thereof I do heartily therefore recommend this Authour to all those rich persons who find flesh and bloud prevail more in them then pietie to the poor for if I be not much mistaken they will thank me to have done this charity to them who thought perhaps they did not stand in need thereof but their minds may be other after reading the solid pietie of this learned Authour Salvianus upon this particular subject 18. Lo here the word is opposed to the work the tongue to truth as if we did want charity that onely gave good words to the poor without alms or as if they wanted truth who fed the poor with words of comfort onely when they were able truely to satisfie their hunger and would not Not but that he is truely charitable who instructing feeds the soul at least when he cannot feed his body but that to do both is the duty of a Christian when both may be done and where both are wanting So the meaning of this text is that our charity ought to
mercy may be multiplied upon us more often then wâ— do multiply our sinnes because it is by the multiplication of that mercy we obtain first grace to repent and then capacity to be pardoned and pittied too as if pardon alone were not enough without God also took pitty on us and did as well by his pitty â—xcuse as by his pardon forgive our sins For certainly should not God pitty our frailty he could never so often pardon our iniquity nor multiply as he doth his mercy upon us to prevent our sinning as if yet our ill natures could be overcome by his goodnesse and made to offend so great so good a God no more whereunto there is nothing so much conducing as the multip ied mercy that we beg to day to the end we may at last leave to grasp after the shadowes of comfort we aim at by following our own dictamens and may learn to run after the substance of God Almighties promises and thereby may deserve to be made partakers of his heavenly treasures which are promised to all that will for love of them renounce the empty shadowes of riches which this world affords But it remaines this prayer must suite as well to the other seâ—vice of the day as this glosse is suitable to the Prayer In brief therefore see the Epistle all upon graces gratis given while the prayer begs that pardon and pitty which we could never hope for did not God give them gratis and multiply his mercies upon us by the gratuite gift thereof See again the Gospel making the pardon and pitty extended to the Publicane more ultroneous and free by Gods having multiplyed his mercy on him least he should with the proud Pharisee boast his virtues who was full of nothing else but vice And consequently see an excellent report between the Prayer and both the other parts of holy Churches service teaching us by these examples to detest the shadowes of worldly pelfe and to run unto the promises of Almighty God thereby to be made partakers of his heavenly treasures The Epistle 1 Cor. 12.2 c. 2 You know that when you were heathen you went to dumb Idols according as you were led 3 Therefore I do you to understand that no man speaking in the Spirit of God saith Anathema to Jesus And no man can say Our Lord Jesus but in the holy Ghost 4 And there are divisions of graces but one Spirit 5 And there are divisions of ministrations but one Lord. 6 And there are divisions of operations but one God who worketh all in all 7 And the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every one to profit 8 To one certes by the Spirit is given the word of wisdome and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit 9 To another Faith in the same Spirit to another the grace of doing cures in one Spirit 10 To another the working of miracles to another prophecy to another discerning of spirits to another kinds of Tongues to another Interpretation of languages 11 And all these worketh one and the same Spirit dividing to every one according as he will The Explication 2. THat is to say like so many slaves to sense led on by the evil custome of your Idolatrous Ancestours and of the devil or rather indeed misled by them you went on in a kind of fond zeal to serve dumb Idols that could neither hear nor see much lesse give you any requital of the service you did them but now that you are Christians serving a true a living a liberal God give that great God thanks for this conversion O Corinthians 3. This word therefore is used as a link to tye this and the following verses in sense together as who should say therefore I put you in mind of your conversion from Gentilisme to Christianity that your zeal in the service of the true God may as much transcend what you used to false gods as life transcends death as all things transcend nothing as the shadow the substance for so much a perfect Christian transcends a Gentile And therefore it is impossible that a Christian speaking according to the true spirit of such should say Anathema to Jesus should curse Jesus as the Gentiles perhapâ— did curse their Idols when they had not what they expected from them but contrariwise are to blesse praise and magnifie Jesus Christ as the authour of all grace in this life and of glory in the next But the Apostle inculcates this because even the Jewes did curse Jesus as also did the Gentiles amongst whom the Corinthians lived and their Judges to try who were Christians made them do this so least they should follow this ill example the Apostle useth this exhortation to the contrary holding it sufficient obligation not to curse Jesus that one was a Christian See how handsomely the Apostle makes these two opposite to curse Jesus and to call upon the name of Jesus as who should say since the holy Ghost gives you the grace to call upon Jesus you cannot speak in the Spirit of the holy Ghost if you curse Jesus Where note that by calling upon Jesus is not meant the meer prolation of the name or word Jesus but the religious Invocation of that holy name in order to a supernatural end and this none can do but as assisted by the holy Ghost much lesse can you from any other fountain then this vaunt your selves O Corinthians of any other gifts or graces then this I say of the holy Ghost 4. One Spirit One onely holy Ghost giving diversely his several graces to several persons as he pleaseth 5. One Lord Christ Jesus God and man to whom all orders in the Church pay the tribute of their respective services as if from Christ they had their several offices and orders appointed them 6. Note the Apostle here refers grace to the holy Ghost as the fountain thereof ministration service or duty to Christ as Lord of heaven and earth and operation or working to God the Father as the origin and fountain of all things and of their operations And we may not unfitly say the same thing is meant by grace ministration and operation with several respects unto the several persons in the sacred Trinity who as one God is the undivided fountain of all the holy divisions abovesaid and so all things that are done out of God or as Divines say ad extra are equally attributed to the whole Trinity how ever we do piously attribute them also as it were severally to the several persons thereof By God's working all in all is here understood his mutuall concourse to all natural causes and effects and his sole working whatsoever is supernatural in us by means of graces given gratis and of such onely the Apostle here speaks not of graces rendring grateful nor preventing our operation but of such as God gives meerly gratis 7. By manifestation of the Spirit is here understood the gift of the holy Ghost whereby the said holy
Ghost is made manifest who is the Authour of all supernatural gifts The profit whereunto these gifts are given is rather to the Church then to him that receives them for gratuite graces ever avail the Church but not so him who receives them as miracles may be wrought by a sinner who doth not profit by them perhaps at all yet the Church doth 8. By the word of wisdome is understood the power to explicate deep mysteries of Faith as of the B. Trinity Incarnation praedestination or the like By the word of knowledge or science is understood the power to direct mens actions or manners that they be rational at least Thus S. Augustine lib. 12. Trinit cap. 14. 15. distinguisheth between wisdome and science or knowledge 9. By Faith here is not understood that act of Theological vertue which is common to all Christians but an act of particular confidence in God whereby it is believed he will by vertue of that our confidence work a miracle being asked so to do by such a Faith as is able to remove mountains Others understand by Faith here a deep understanding inabling to contemplate and explicate the mysteries of Faith 10. By miracles here are understood those which are extraordinary and are exercised not onely upon the body but even on the soules of men such as was that of S. Peter upon Ananias and Saphyra commanding them to dye By discretion of spirits is meant when God gives one man the grace to see into the very thoughts and intentions of others to know when an action is done by a good or evil spirit by God or the devil a gift to be begged by ghostly Fathers and conducing to their conduct of soules These gifts S. Hilarion was noted to have By interpretation of languages is understood a special gift frequent in the primitive Church whereby men illuminated for that end did give the true sense of Scripture and of those who being ignorant yet had the gift of Tongues and to spake more then themselves well understood but were by Interpretâ—rs expounded 11. Namely as that Spirit as the holy Ghost pleaseth The Application 1. St. Paul in this Epistle first puts the Corinthians and â—n them all other Christians in mind of the horrid Nothing that they were before their conversion from Gentilisme to Christianity And his aym in this is that as nothing was more abominable to the Gentiles then the name of Jesus Christ so nothing ought to be more reverential to Christians then that most sacred and most saving name insomuch as S. Paul concludes it is an Apostacy from God a relapse to Gentilisme not onely to use irreverence to the name of Jesus but to conceive we have any other life or being then what is purchac'd in that sweetest name 2. Notwithstanding true it is we have life often given us by the holy Ghost the special giver indeed of holy grace which is the â—ife and being of a Christian and hence it is S. Paul had no sooner inamoured the Corinthians on the Name of Jesus then he falls instantly upon the gifts of the holy Ghost sent from his heavenly Father and from his sacred Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to multiply on us the mercies of Almighty God as if to have been once redeemed by Christ had not satisfied his infinite goodnesse without he had also made this Redemption copious by sending his holy Spirit to re-redeem us by his graces from the relapses into sinne that render our first redemption fruitlesse unlesse it had been more copious yet by the multiplyed mercies of the holy Ghost applying the Passion of our Saviour to us by some new gift of grace bestowed upon us as often as we take religious breath into our bodies by calling on the Name of Jesus with an aweful reverence thereunto as befits all Christians to do and for this purpose it is S. Paul falls into the enumeration of the gratuite gifts of God the graces that are meerly gratis given not such as are usual and absolutely necessary for our sayntification or justification but such as rather serve to shew the multiplication of Gods holy Power and Mercies over us 3. Blessed God! how art thou perpetually out-doing thine own goodnesse by thy continual effusion of thy self upon our iniquity how art thou giving daily more and more manifestation and consequently much more admiration to the blessed Angels and Saints in heaven by multiplying thy mercies on us sinners here in earth whom all those happy spirits may give a thousand thousand times for lost when they see how we run after nothing but the sordid gain and pleasure of the world the sweets that poyson the contents that damne our soules and yet by the multiplication of thy mercies we are sweetly forc'd maugre the impulse of devil flesh and bloud to let go all our hold on the possessed shadowes of this world and to run after the promised substances of the next But how my God are we forc't to this by the manifestation of thy Power in the multiplication of thy mercies according as was said before in the Illustration Say now beloved the Prayer above and see if it be not excellently well adapted to this holy Text and to this application of the same unto our best improvement The Gospel Luke 18. v. 9. 9 And he said also to certain that trusted in themselves as just and despised others this parable 10 Two men went up into the Temple to pray the one a Pharisee and the other a Publicane 11 The Pharisee standing prayed thus with himself God I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men extortioners unjust advouterers as also this Publicane 12 I fast twice in a week I give Tythes of all that I possesse 13 And the Publicane standing afar off would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven but he knocked his breast saying God be merciful to me a sinner 14 I say to you this man went down to his house justified more then he because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted The Explication 9. 10. By a Pharisee is understood a proud by a Publicane an humble man in this place 11. By the word standing the pride of the Pharisee is insinuated With himself 't is true for he prayed neither with nor to God for his prayer is rather a vaunting of his own then a seeking of Gods glory And his insolence is great whilest he sayes he is not as other men as who should say all besides himself are sinners had he said as some other men there had been lesse arrogancy yet too much and out of this arrogancy he passeth a rash Judgement upon the Publicane whom he points out for a notorious sinner and insinuates himself to be just 12. By twice a Sabbath is understood twice a week as naming the principal day for the whole week By Tythes of all he possesseth he meanes not onely
ordinary but ultroneous Tythes of things he needed not to pay Tyâ—hes for This relates to what went before as vaunting himself to be the only chast the onely just man living chast as fasting which is the mother of chastity just as giving Tythes of all he had 13. The Publicane a true Type of humility standing his reverential distance from the Altar confessing him elf unworthy to come nearer to the place where the Pharisee proudly stood not daring to lift up his eyes to heaven where he had offended the whole Court the Saints and Angels whose inspirations he had contemned whose prayers defrauded God whose commands he had broken he knocks his breast his heart in token of sorrow and repentance for his sinnes By saying he is a sinner he confesseth his habit of sin by saying have mercy on me he doth not blame either fortune the world or the devil but himself meerly and layes all the load on his own shoulders as true penitents ought to do 14. More then he is as much as to say not absolutely but in respect of the Pharisee he was justified because the one humbled himself the other exalted himself Whence Optatus Milevitanus sayes well lib. 2. against the Donatists Better in some sort are the sinnes of an humble spirit then the pretended or boasted Innocency of an arrogant person The Application 1. THis whole Gospel is summ'd up in these few words of the Publican God be merciful to me a sinner For we see there is nothing else aym'd at in the whole Text but a condemnation of the Pharisees pride and a commendation of the Publicans humility or rather of his humble charity That is such a love as renounceth all proper merit and hath recourse to nothing but the mercy of Almighty God such a love as likes but dares not look to heaven such a love as hates all sin but hath no other hope of sayntity then from the mercy of God Almighty such a love as believes God hath power to save a soul but that he cannot manifest this Power without his mercy first appear because he cannot save a sinner unlesse he mercifully give him first leave to repent his sins 2. Thus we see beloved how charity goes shod with humility when in her journey she is handed on by Faith and Hope But that which to me is most admirable in this dayes service is to see the little end for which Almighty God is manifesting his power most of all by his mercy and how he is besought to multiply that mercy for the maâ—ifestation of his power both to men and Angels upon so small an account as making us pursue our own felicity onely that is to say the Promises he hath made unto us of much better gifts in the dayes of glory then he hath yet bestowed upon us in these our dayes of grace 3. Yes yes beloved our good God hath much to do with wicked sinners We may say with much more reason of mans salvation as the Romans did of erecting their Empire Tantae molis erat O what a huge attempt it was to set up the Roman Nation and to make them Monarchs of this world So if we look upon the final end of God Almighties exercised power and multiplyed mercies over us it is meerly to save his Christian people meerly to make them Monarchs of the next world eternal Emperours everlasting Triumphers over death sin devil and damnation after they had been slaves to them four thousand years together Nay so fond Almighty God is of his darling man that he is even content to bestow his utmost Power his extended omnipotency his multiplyed mercies on him to beget but a desire in him onely of his own felicity which consists in the promises of the next world not in the possessions of this Say then the Prayer above and see how it petitions onely this desire here to make us capable of all the joyes in heaven and of all the Treasures there On the eleventh Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Mark 7. v. 37. HE hath done all things well he hath caused the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer ALmighty everlasting God who out of the abundance of thy pitty dost exceed as well the merits of thy suppliants as their desires pour out thy mercy upon us that thou mayst forgive what our conscience is afraid of and adde even what our prayer dares not presume to ask The Illustration HOw apposite is this admirable Prayer unto the Epistle and Gospel of this day which are nothing else but meer relations to the abundance of that pity whereby God doth exceed as well the merits as the desires of his suppliants and whereby he did pour out his mercy upon his people forgiving them what their own conscience was afraid of and adding what their prayer durst not presume to ask Say beloved was it not an abundance of pity that Christ gave us S. Paul and other Apostles to preach unto us the story of his life passion death and resurrection were not these works of his pity exceeding as well the merits as the desires of his suppliants when no mortal durst have desired so much misery to Christ because no man was able to deserve his God should suffer so much for him were not then the mercies of Heaven poured out upon us when our redemption was purchased at so deare a rate to Jesus Christ and was not St. Paul justly afraid something might lurk in his conscience unforgiven when he ends this dayes Epistle saying his having persecuted the Church of God made him unworthy to be called an Apostle and that since he was what he was by the grace of God he durst not presume to ask so great a favour O how literally is this whole Epistle exhausted in this excellent Prayer And what are the cures done upon the deaf and dumb related in the Gospel but an abundance of like pity in Jesus Christ but like excesse of his mercy poured out upon these diseased people what the amazement in the beholders of these miracles closing up the said Gospel but an acknowledgment that the guilt of their consciences made them afraid to be in the presence of so good a God and that the grant of the cure was a thing added freely by Christ as done in more ample manner then they durst presume to aske though with a faint desire and a fainter faith they had presented those diseased people to our Saviour to be cured Say now beloved was I rash in falling upon this bold attempt to shew a sympathy between the Prayers of holy Church and the preaching part of her Services Rather I am to ask God pardon that I did often doubt it was not true because I was many times too lazy to beat it out by way of meditation but now that I see the thing is certainly true I shall not be troubled if I fail at any time in so
clear a demonstration of it as deeper souls may make encouraged by these beginnings of my shallow understanding Mean while I shall beseech our whole sodality to say these Prayers with all devotion possible as being such indeed that rightly understood do ravish any tender soul and will make them see the fondnesse of a single-soled devotion in comparison of this which is the Universall Churches Prayer Let me conclude with this one question onely tell me beloved what we may not daâ—e to aske of God Almighty who in this dayes prayer are bid demand more then we dare presume to aske And why because no guilt of conscience is so great but he that is the searcher of our hearts can see the depth thereof and seeing mercifully pardon it through the abundance of his pitty towards us nay then he commonly gives a more ample pardon when we acknowledge his mercy exceeds as much our desires as it doth our merits when we rely upon him for prevenient grace to ask him pardon for our sinnes and that done with a soul contrite then build upon his goodnesse for the rest when we leave it to him what proportion of mercy he will show us since he being God cannot give so little but it is much more then we his creatures can deserve and since his goodnesse is such as he cannot chuse but give more then he bids us aske since we must alwayes ask as wanting creatures he alwayes gives as an abounding Creatour giving all things to nothing rather then want a subject to bestow his bounties on and we are lesse then nothing when he gives repentance to our sinfull souls O! this beloved is the pouring out of his mercy this is the out-doing goodnesse of Almighty God which in the prayer above we so much magnifie and in so doing glorifie his blessed name whence we may one day hope to see our blisse our glory flowing also since therefore God is glorified here in time that he may render us in heaven glorious for all eternity The Epistle 1. Cor. 15.1 c. 1 Brethren I give you to understand the Gospel which I have preached to you which also you received in which also you stand 2 By the which also you are saved after what manner I preached unto you if you keep it unlesse you have believed in vain 3 For I delivered unto you first of all which I also received that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures 4 And that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures 5 And that he was seen of Cephas and after that of the eleven 6 Then was he seen of more then five hundred brethren together of which many remain untill this present and some are asleep 7 Moreover he was seen of James then of all the Apostles 8 And last of all of an abortive he was seen also of me 9 For I am the least of the Apostles who am not worthy to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the Church of God 10 But by the grace of God I am that which I am and his grace in me hath not been void but I have laboured more aboundantly then all they yet not I but the grace of God with me The Explication 1. THat is I call again here to your mind So runs the Greek Text where the Vulgar sayes we are given to understand 2. Meaning if you work according to your belief so here faith without works was preached by Saint Paul to be vain as who should say no faith were saving but that which by charitie is operative 3. Hence it is clear the Apostle did first deliver by word of mouth the doctrine which he after writ so by tradition we come first and chiefly to Christianitie by preaching not by writing for faith is by hearing Rom. 10.17 And whereas here we read of delivery the Greeks write tradition and that according to the Scriptures 4. That is as was literally foretold by the figure of Jonas three dayes in the Whales belly allegorically of Isaac delivered safe to his mother three dayes after he had been preserved from death though offered up thereunto by Abraham 5. By Cephas understand Peter who was the first man Christ appeared to though he had before appeared to Mary Magdalene as we read Mark the last v. 9. Then to the eleven Apostles That was in the Octave of Easter when Saint Thomas was also present for at first he appeared onely to the other ten though the Greeks read to twelve meaning to the whole Colledge of Apostles which may stand good though one or two were absent as an act is said to be the whole Councills act when it is past by the greater number 6. He was seen to those five hundred as in the aire or from some high place that all might see him at once to shew them rather then to tell them he was risen for it is not said in this Text that he spoke to any of these five hundred persons And it is most probable this apparition was in the mountain of Galilee which was by our Saviour foretold so that this company probably went thither purposely and as foretold what would happen This apparition was before the Ascension for this mountain was in Galilee not in Judaea as was the mount Olivet whence our Saviour did ascend 7. This was an apparition of speciall favour to Saint James of Alphaeus called the brother of Christ and succeeding him in his sea at Hierusalem So our Saviour was not content once onely and that in common to appear unto Saint James with the rest of the Apostles and peradventure with the five hundred in the verse above but he was pleased specially to grace his brother so called because he was like our Saviour by a private appearing to him after these publick apparitions to him and others 8. Saint Paul calls himself abortive because he was born to the Apostolate after the time of Christ his choosing his Apostles by a speciall calling even from heaven after Christ had ascended to his heavenly Father So S. Ambrose and S. Chrysostome expound it Yet there want not other pious expositions of this word by other Fathers as if by this S. Paul would render himself lesse considerable So the next verse clearly saies and needs no further exposition 9 10. By the grace of God I am an Apostle and the Doctour of the Gentiles and this grace hath not been void idle or lazie in me but operative according to the diligence of a soul inflamed with the love of God and making his free will a servant to grace by acting freely what by holy inspirations he was called unto The Epistle ends at void but the verse goes on as above He saies more aboundantly then all they this may seem an ill arrogancy after so much humiliation of himself but it is not so for by more aboundantly he means onely by overcoming more vice not that he professed more virtue namely
the vice of a persecuter which was in none but himself though more may be attributed to his doing as much in a lesse time as the rest did in longer space being he was last called With me that is laboureth with me and not as the Heretickes translate the grace which is with me or in me I not laboring my self but relying on the past labours of Christ thus vainly they but the holy Church understands the Apostle to mean his joynt labour with the grace of God The Application 1. St. Paul in this Epistle recapitulates the arguments by which he brought the Corinthians to believe the hardest point of Faith that then was agitated the resurrection of our Saviour for it was upon preaching that doctrine this Apostle was chiefly persecuted and for defence whereof he suffered martyrdome 2. But as we see this Epistle in the beginning requires that charity accompany the faith of this great mystery so in the close thereof humility attends on charity while S. Paul first calls himself an abortive and the least of the Apostles more one not worthy of that celebrated Name nor daring to ascribe unto himself the fruits of any his greatest labours but attributing all to the grace of God effectually operating in him all those things whereunto he thought himself did very poorly cooperate Thus must faith and humility accompany our charity in her now long march to Advent in all her way to Judgement it self 3. What can be the result of this mystery other then that which naturally followes the unexpected proof of the least expected and most unbelieved thing in all the world the Resurrection of our Saviour A joy no doubt ineffable in those that were his friends and had no hand in any of his sufferings and a confusion on the other side in all that had contributed unto his death a sorrow and a fear if not a deep despair indeed that their sinne of Deicide was sure enough unpardonable So should it be with us beloved who although we cannot kill our Christ again yet do attempt to crucifie him by the very least of many mortall sinnes that we commit against his heavenly Majesty notwithstanding our own conscience tells us we doe therein worse then ever did the Jewes for they pretended zeal in all they did whereas we know we sinne for want of zeal for want of love to him who died for love of us What remedy but that which holy Church to day hath found when we hear the Preachers tell us of the frights and feares the sadnesse and confusion of the Jewes in such a case that then We pray not onely as we did on Sunday last to have Gods mercy multiplyed but even powred out upon us as his precious bloud was powred upon the Jewes that by such a showre of mercy the sinnes our conscience fears may be pardoned and the favours we dare not aske may be granted for the reasons given in the preamble of the Prayer and in the end of the Illustration above The Gospel Mark c. 7. v. 31. 31 And again going out of the coasts of Tyre he came by Sidon to the sea of Galilee through the middest of the coast of Decapolis 32 And they bring to him one deaf and dumb and they besought him that he would impose his hands upon him 33 And taking him from the multitude apart he put his fingers into his eares and spitting touched his tongue 34 And looking up unto heaven he groaned and said to him Epheta which is be opened 35 And immediately his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosened and he spake right 36 And he commanded them not to tell any body but how much he commanded them so much the more a great deal did they publish it 37 And so much the more did they wonder saying He hath done all things well he hath made both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak The Explication 31. THis literall narration of Christ going from coast to coast and by the Sea side alludeth to the change which grace maketh in those who follow the calling of Almighty God that they must leave their former customes and go by new coasts even rough and dangerous seas of persecution up mountains of dangers and difficulties to enjoy the quiet of a good conscience 32. By deaf understand mystically those who will not obey the commands of God and holy Church by dumbe those who will not praise Almighty God in their actions nor in their thoughts but like mutes spend their time in silencing Gods praises They ask him to lay his hands on them because they had experience he did use to cure the diseased by that means 33. He tooke him apart because this corporall cure alludes to the conversion of the soul and the best means of conversion to God is an aversion from the world a retyring from evill company By his fingers put into the deaf mans eares understand the holy Ghost opening the infidels understanding and making him believe the word of God when he hears it Besides the holy Ghost is often intimated by the finger of God as Ex. 8.19 alibi By spitting here is meant Christ his wetting his own finger with his own spittle so notes the Greek Text not that he did spit into the dumb mans mouth And Christ his spittle is not an unfit cure of dumbnesse since by the moisture of the tongue speech is much perfected and aridity is an impediment to speech Thus even God works miracles by the aptest instruments in nature for them 34. By his looking to heaven we are minded that from thence comes all the power we have to heare the word of God and to speak his praise By his groaning he showes how God seems to lament the miseries of those souls which are infected with the contagion of sin By his saying Epheta be thou open to the deaf ear he shewes himself to be God as curing by command 35. No marvel God commanding the cure was done but by his speaking right we are told the cure was perfectly done and not palliated And indeed then it is most evident Gods operation is perfect in us when it brings us from wrong to right from sick to sound but mystically when from sinners we are brought to be right perfected Saints and surely needs must he speak right whom God had cured of his dumbnesse Though some will have it hence that this man was not quite dumb but had onely a stammering in his speech or a weaknesse in that organ not suffering him to speak plain but to babble as children do that first learn to speak Yet by right speaking may here be well understood the cured mans speaking perfectly the praises of God and rightly glorifying his Divine Majesty thereby 36. The word command here is not to be taken strictly or arguing a precept but rather a request so there was no sin in breaking it but rather as S. Augustine insinuates a virtue and that obedience too for
time by doing homage to Almighty God So by this account all Sundayes Holy dayes require an exercise of these three virtues Theologicall and consequently all the time of private prayer is to be spent in actual exercise of these because that prayer is an addresse to God as all the time of persecution that being suffered for Gods sake all the time of troubles for those are caused by sinne against Almighty God and must have end by saintitie so by this account all our life time must be a practice of these virtues an increase of them indeed as the onely means to make us saints to make us capable of God Almighties promises by loving these his easie his sweet his saving commandements which are the continual exercise of these Theologicall virtues whereby we are made capable of his heavenly promises And least it should be with us as with these nine ungratefull Lepers cured from their Leprosy which is a type of all sinne whatsoever but especially of the foulest of all others Infidelity Therefore holy Church to day to prevent all sin in her Christian children and above all the sin of ungratefull infidelitie commends unto us the Prayer above that by often saying this Prayer we may exercise the noblest and most essentiall virtues that belong to Christianitie and by their increase make our selves worthie of our Saviours promises to all good Christians On the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 6. v. 33. SEek first the Kingdome of God and his righteousnesse and all things shall be given you besides Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer KEep we beseech thee O Lord thy Church with perpetuall propitiation and since without thee humane mortalitie faileth let it alwayes by thy helps be withdrawn from such things as are hurtfull and directed to those that are saving The Illustration HOw excellently well is the much of the Epistle and Gospel contained in the little of this Prayer wherein we confesse it is by the perpetuall propitiation of our Saviours passion without which our humane mortality would be alwaies failing as the onely help conducing to support us that we can be withdrawn from the works of the flesh and directed to walk in the Spirit that is to say taken off from those things which are hurtfull and directed to those that are saving And what else is the whole Epistle but an exhortation to leave off the works of the flesh and to pursue the fruits of the Spirit Again what are the two masters which the Gospel saies we cannot serve at once but the flesh and the spirit what the drift of all the Gospel but to dehort from one and exhort unto the other So here Epistle Prayer and Gospel speak all one thing how severall soever the language be of each and no marvell because the spirit of Almighty God is able to animate all the creatures of the world Act. 17.28 For it is he in whom we live are moved and have being Now having thus made good our main affair of this work the mutuall connexion of parts in holy Churches service it rests onely to elucidate a word or two in the Prayer above to render the same in it self perfectly understood The first is the perpetuall propitiation wherewith we beg the Church may be kept for though above we called that propitiation an effect of our Saviors passion yet here we must further give a reason why we did so call it and also why we in the Prayer affirm the same to be a perpetuall effect thereof Know therefore it is the effect of his passion because it is not onely a satisfaction for sinne but also a pacification of Gods wrath against mankind who by sinne had provoked Almightie God to a high indignation against the whole race of men And therefore we call this propitiation perpetuall because it is infinite in duration as well as in power of appeasing for though it be now above 1651. years since our Saviour did actually suffer yet the virtue of his suffering is still vigorous and shall be to the worlds end because it was the suffering of God as well as of man and therefore must needs have an eternall operation that is be able for all eternity to appease the wrath divine and in this sense we say the preservation of the world in being is the continuation of the act whereby it was created so the preservation of mens souls from the wrath of the heavenly Father is the continuation of the passion of his sacred Sonne The next phrase of this Prayer which we are to clear is that wherein we say without our perpetually propitious Lord Humane mortalitie would fail as if there were any other mortalitie then humane that were capable of the benefit of our Saviours passion of his perpetuall propitiation Truely no there is not for since it was onely Humane nature that he assumed and by assuming it was pleased to redeem the same we say rightly well no other mortalitie was capable of the benefit of this redemption not but that other natures are mortall as all terrestriall creatures are in the very rigour of death or mortalitie because they all die by way of corruption and if we say the celestiall spirits are mortall too because they may be held to die when they fell from heaven to hell from the state of grace to the state of damnation we shall not speak improperly and truly the phrase of this Prayer seems to allude to that mortality of the blessed spirits when therein we are taught to affirm that our Saviours passion was a propitiation peculiarly provided for the subsistence onely of humane mortalitie since it was a remedy provided onely to recover so often as they chance to fall mortall men and not any other mortall creature besides either terrestriall or celestiall And thus the stile of humane mortalitie is most apposite because man onely had the happinesse of mercy to be shewed him for his sins which was a favour never done to any Angel whatsoever and this mercy is just the same which this present Prayer avoucheth begging that our humane mortalitie which needs must fail without it may have the benefit of our blessed Saviours perpetuall propitiation by the application thereunto of his bitter death and passion which will afford it helps to avoid what is hurtfull and to follow what is saving The Epistle Galat. 5. v. 16. c. 16 Brethren I say walk in the spirit and the lusts of the flesh you shall not accomplish 17 For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh for they are adversaries one to another that not what things soever you will these you do 18 But if you be led by the spirit you are not under the Law 19 And the works of the flesh be manifest which are fornication uncleannesse impudicitie lecherie 20 Serving of Idols witchcrafts enmities contentions emulations anger brawles dissentions sects 21 Envies murthers
bade her weep no more 14. See how soon the promised comforts of God arrive immediately as he said to her weep not he stopt the hearse and bade the dead corps arise Elias Eliseus and others did pray to raise the dead Christ to shew he was God raised this young man by command and not by prayer Yet observe he touched the hearse no marvel upon the touch of Christ who was life everlasting as being God that temporall life should be restored to the dead body that he touched this he did as naturally as a red hot iron burneth straw So did his flesh united to the Word give life to a carcasse by virtue of that hypostaticall union 15. His sitting up and beginning to speak were indeed true signes of his reviving yet Christ was pleased to take him by the hand and thereby lift him from the hearse and lead him to his mother to shew that he was so humble as he would not onely oblige but even serve his servants Nor is it any wonder that Christ the King of Heaven and Earth should perform the office of a Courtier by his civility to the noble person of this sad widdow whom he had graced and comforted by that act of his power 16. Note this miracle was a kind of Parable importing the spirituall death of souls by sinne and the reviving of the soul again by grace though here the widdowes tears were the motive for Christ to reward her by the restoring her son to life and withall many souls doubtlesse from the death of infidelitie to the life of Christianitie upon the sight of so celebrated a miracle That they were all struck with fear what wonder for their guiltie conscience might make them doubt he who could raise the dead could kill the living as easily if he list but seeing he did not so or rather lest he should do so they blessed God and said for magnifying here importeth glorifying of him he had pleased to visit his people by sending them a great Prophet for as yet they understood Christ to be no more and that he was such this very act made them believe and some doubtlesse concluded he was the long expected Messias whom they called by the name of the great Prophet for distinction sake Note the glosse observes three resuscitations from death to be made by Christ the first that of the daughter of the Archi-synagogue and that by private prayer in her fathers house none being by the second this of the onely sonne of the widdow whom he raised in publick by a word of command and by a touch of his hand the third was that of Lazarus whom with a perplexitie of prayer and tears he raised and with loud crying out Lazarus come forth as if he were undone if he had him not alive again The first of these signifies souls dead by mortall sinne of thought and those therefore were more easily raised by private prayer the second signifies those dead by mortall sin of words those are yet with more difficultie raised by command the third yet more hardly by importune prayer tears and cries to heaven as signifying those souls which are dead by mortall sinne of deed and that reiterated or habituall unto them The Application 1. ALl Expositours agree this miracle of raising the dead by a touch of our Saviours holy hand is a mere figure of his raising souls from the death of mortall sinne to the life of grace by the finger of the holy Ghost by the gift of his holy grace his holy Law which cannot touch a soul but it must needs enliven it See the explication of the last verse in the Gospel for more to this purpose 2. And who can now forbid us piously to thinke this onely sonne of the distressed widdow represents the soul of some one faithfull believer dead yet for want of charitie and revived by the tears and prayers of his tender mother the holy Catholick Church at whose intercession and in contemplation of her tears our Saviour Jesus Christ sends down the holy Ghost to touch the Coffin of this sinners heart with the finger of his grace with the gift the flame of Love and so reviving him first internally then gives him by the hands of the Priest who is Christs Vicar in point of absolution into the lap of his mother externally to live again that is to say admitted to the Sacraments and declared to be a living member as before his death of mortall sinne during which time he was not capable of any Sacrament at all as to the effect the grace thereof 3. To conclude as reason teaches every man to beware of his own danger by seeing another perish in going such a way before him thus holy Church knowing her Priests and people are many wayes liable to the snares of the common enemy and perceiving it is often by the prayers of those that stand they are raised again who fall and that this raising is a continuall mercy of Almighty God gratis given even when most earnestly implored and that the continuation of this gratuite gift is the onely means by which even all the children of the Church do not fall all at once into the death of deadly sinne but are many of them while others fall inabled to stand securely on their living legs of charitie and are governed thereby in every step they make to glory Therefore I say we are to day bid pray as above that this charitie this bountie of our Lord may govern us in all our wayes and that we may have the cleansing and the defending mercy of God continued over us lest that failing us we here fall out of grace and thereby faile of glory in the world to come On the sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 14.10 WHen thou shalt be called to a marriage sit in the lowest place that he who did invite thee may say unto thee friend ascend up higher and so it shall be a glory unto thee before them that sit there Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt thy grace we beseech thee O Lord alwaies go before and follow us and make us continually intent unto good works The Illustration WHat may seem as common in this Prayer to all persons times and places must not hinder it to be a very particular and apposite petition to this present time wherein it is by holy Church put up unto Almighty God purity cannot approach Tell me beloved now what single-souled devotion can compare with this that being common is peculiar unto each particular in such a sort as it there were no more but one man left in all the world even into his particular necessity would run the whole contents of all these common prayers which are not therefore lesse adapted unto every one because they are the prayers of all the world besides but rather we are sure our selves had need to say them when every man alive doth find himself concerned
instead of purifying our intentions of honouring as we ought to do one onely God when even under that pretence by the contagion of factious doctrine we Idolize to as many devils as mislead us in the wayes of faction and division For prevention whereof holy Church fitly prayes as above that our intentions may be purified by the unity thereof by intending Gods honour only in those services that are pretended done for Gods sake and not our own interest On the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 9. v. 7. THe sick then of the palsie took up his bed in which he lay magnifying God and all the people which beheld it gave praise to God Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer LEt O Lord the operation of thy mercy direct our hearts because without thee wee cannot please thee The Illustration IF any man doubt what is meant by the operation of our Lords mercy mentioned in this prayer S. Paul in the first verse of this daies Epistle will tell him it is the actual grace of God which the Apostle alwayes gives thanks for as being the cause of the Corinthians conversion of their being enriched in all things appertaining to Christian religion so as to want nothing but the revelation of Christ in glory whom already they beheld in grace as also of their perseverance without crime till the day of doom in that belief unto which by this grace they had been called This is the summ of the Epistle and undoubtedly this is the sense of the prayer begging that as by the operation of Christ his mercy the Corinthians became Christians so we that are by the same meanes of the same profession may by the same help have our hearts directed by the operation of our Saviours mercy towards us by the encrease of his grace within us And indeed that encrease is also properly the operation of his mercy too for the first gift thereof was rather the exhibition then the operation of his holy grace and yet to us it seems like an operation of it too within his own bowels and so as we said above the exhibition of it in our eyes is as the effect of his mercie upon himself but the encrease thereof is the operation of it upon us to whom it is exhibited so by the exhibition of this grace we become children of God and by the encrease thereof we grow to be his champions to live his Saints and die his Martyrs rather then renounce the Faith of Christ Thus we see the first clause of this Prayer hath exhausted the whole Epistle of the day Now that the Gospel should be by the close thereof exhausted too would seem strange if already stranger mysteries had not appeared in the mysterious prayers of holy Church And certain it was for the depth of their spirit that S. Gregory the great collects them all together into a book intituled of Sacraments that is to say of Mysteries as in the preface of this book was hinted not that the stile of Churches prayers is other then plain and easie but that the depth of their meaning is prodigious We have examples in the simple stile of Thomas à Kempis authour of the following of Christ the plainest and the deepest book that ever was written next to holy Writ the fullest of common places and yet the most home to every mans particular that reads it So it is with the Churches prayers they are in words simple and facil but in sense such as the deepest understanding may not be able to sound the bottome of them For instance see how the whole story of the Gospel is wound off by the onely close of this daies prayer if yet the former clause thereof were not appropriable thereunto For what imports the pressing into Jesus presence of the paralytick and those who from the houses top did drop him down into the room where Jesus was when they found not entrance any other way but an infinite faith they had of being cured by the least touch of his sacred person and this to satisfie our selves with the letter of the story not recurring as we might to the mystery thereof What I say means this passage else then a remonstrance of this paralyticks faith in Jesus Christ And who doth not see the close of this prayer excellently well allude to faith since we read that without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Do not we Christians then implicitely beg if not the gift which we have already at least the encrease of faith when we end this prayer with confessing We cannot without God please his Divine Majestie that is to say as without the gift of faith we can be no Christians at all so without the encrease thereof through the operation of Christ his mercy in us we cannot become good Christians such as by works of charity still encrease our faith in Jesus Christ and by that encrease deserve with the paralytick as well the remission of our sins as the cure of corporal diseases since without such remission we cannot please Almighty God and without him no such remission can be had that is without his mercy operate first upon him to pardon us and then upon us when pardoned to offend no more not that this operation of Gods mercy upon himself is any new act but ever is ever was and will be one and the same act in him seeming new to us by the new effects it produceth in us So every way is it an undoubted truth that without him we can no wayes please him And thus do we still adjust the prayers of holy Church unto the other service of the day The Epistle 1 Cor. 1. v. 4. 4 I give thanks to my God alwayes for you for the grace of God that is given you in Christ Jesus 5 That in all things you may be rich in him in all utterance and in all knowledge 6 As the testimony of Christ is confirmed in you 7 So that nothing is wanting to you in any grace expecting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ 8 Who also will confirm you unto the end without crime in the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ The Explication 4. IN these words S. Paul gives thanks to God incessant for the grace of Christ which was given to the Corinthians who thereby were made Christians An excellent lesson and ought to be frequently practised by us to acknowledge that our perseverance is a continuation of our vocation to Christianity 5. In all things appertaining to your religion Rich in him rich by him that doth enrich you every hour by preserving you in the same vocation he hath called you unto In all utterance in all your words whereby is preached this faith In all knowledge in all true spiritual understanding the doctrine of Christ as who should say I thank God that hath by mine and by Apollo's preaching afforded you all understanding and true sense
then none ever had done before nor since but by commission from our Lord. 3. And here we see in this verse the Jewes were scandalized at him for presuming to claime a power they thought was so much above him as they held it blasphemie in our Saviour to exercise the same whence Saint Marke recounting this story addes c. 2. v. 7. that they said who can remit sinne but God alone yet these their thoughts Saint Matthew here doth not say they expressed but that Christ knew them as well as if they had done so as is clear by the following verse 4. Note by Christ's seeing their thoughts we are here to understand he sees them by his owne power not as Prophets who by revelation see and know hidden mysteries but as illuminated by his own not any extrinsecall spirit as he was God the knower and searcher of hearts So by this they did not onely see he was a Prophet but also that he was God since it was onely foretold of the great Prophet the Messias that he should remit sinnes which Christ to prove himself to be did practise upon this paralytick 5. It is not onely easier to say to a lame man walke then to remit sinne but it is rasier to create the whole world then to forgive sinne and this because sinne is a nothing more removed from God then any other nothing can be So to draw being out of any other not being or nothing requires lesse power then to give the being of grace to him that was annihilated in the nothing of sinne as who should say one were lesse a child of God by being a sinner then nothing is in respect of being a creature For nothing is onely negatively or privatively opposite to God but sinne is diametrically opposite as a contrary inconsistent with him nay there are no contraries so opposite as God and sinne are Lastly the remission of sinne produceth an effect supernaturall to wit grace but creation gives onely a naturall being to a creature Note here Christ doth not aske whether is it easier to forgive sinne or to cure the sick but to say thy sinnes are forgiven or to say rise and walke for though it may seem the first is harder yet in earnest the last is the hardest because the first cannot so easily be disproved as the last for if one say rise and walke unlesse it be done it is easily said a man spoke beyond his power but t is not so if one say thy sinne is forgiven thee for none can tell but it may be true 6. Note by the Sonne of Man in this verse is proved that Christ as man had power to forgive sinnes else he had come short in power of his Apostles to whom as to men he gave faculty to remit sinnes also and therefore this facultie must needs be more proper to himself as man since no man can give another what is not in his own power And this power of superexcellence in Christ consists in foure things The first that the merit and power of his passion is it which operates in the Sacraments chiefly The second that in his name Sacraments are made holy The third that he is the instituter of them The fourth that he by his speciall prerogative can give the effect of Sacraments without the Sacraments remission of sinnes or grace And this power is proper to Christ alone for neither Saint Peter nor any Pope else ever had or can have it That he speakes to the paralytick not to the Pharisees argues they were murmuring at him as if they did not believe him so he turns to the sick man saying Rise take up thy bed and goe home and by this done as well as said it was proved evidently both that he was God and man for the cure was wrought to prove he had power on earth to forgive sinnes That you may know saith he the Sonne of God can remit sinnes I confirm it by this miracle bidding this sicke man rise take up his bed and walke as who should say I confirme one truth by another my being God by shewing you I am the Messias and can heale both soules and bodies too 7. 8. By this act of doing as he was bid the sick man gave undoubted proof to them all that as well his sinnes were remitted as his disease cured for they seeing him obey the sudden command who was before not able to stirre fell all out of admiration into a fear of that power for which they glorified God to wit chiefly that of forgiving sins which they had not before seen any proof of in other Prophets doing it in their own names as Christ now did though often they had seen and heard of corporall cures and great miracles done by other Prophets So this admiration and the effect thereof this their fear was grounded chiefly in that power they see Christ exercise of remitting sins and of proving the same power by another of curing the paralytick also of his corporall disease and hence they seeing admired admiring feared and fearing glorified God who had given such power namely of forgiving sinnes unto man for that was it Christ undertook to prove that the sonne of man had power to forgive sinnes which when first they heard they thought he blasphemed but now they rested satisfied it was true and glorified God because they found it true by the testimony of this prodigious miracle The Application 1. SEe how suitable this Gospel is to the Epistle What was the cure done here but an operation of mercy in Jesus Christ giving this sick man first the gift of faith next that of charity to work a sorrow in him for his sinnes and lastly the effect of that sorrow absolution from the guilt of sinne and restitution of his uselesse limbs to their naturall uses by the corporall cure of his palsie superadded to the spirituall cure of his sinfull soul as was said partly in the Illustration partly in the Explication above 2. So that by this example of Christ his mercy towards the sick man and to those that brought him and to all the rest that were spectatours of the miracle we are taught to be still imploying our charity in works of mercy both corporall and spirituall not to some one onely but to all upon all occasions offered 3. And we may piously perswade our selves this doctrine is to day inculcated the rather because our charity these two last Sundayes past was at a seeming stand or loss of her way by reason of the mists and the eclipse she met with in her march so now she is exhorted to mend her pace to advance the faster yet withall to shew her she stands not altogether upon her own leggs nor moves by her own strength nor can without God please God in the least Therefore she prayes to day that he will mercifully perfect her faith which is the first step to his pleasure by the operation of her charity and yet lest she ascribe the least
Note the phrase of the Apostle how deep it is the spirit of your mind as who should say that mind which led them before baptisme to the desires of errour and which since baptisme had relapsed a little that old way was rather a corporal or at least but an animal mind and deserved not the honour to be stiled spiritual as not being led by any other motive then sense but now they are Christians he tells them their mind must be spiritual and follow the motives of grace and vertue So while he bids them be renewed in the spirit of their mind he insinuates as if though their actions even now have life from the old soul yet they should be performed by a spiritual and not by a corporal impulse 24. By putting on is here understood continue and keep on by the new man is meant the supernatural not the natural man or the internal not the external for as the last we cannot loose so the first we can hardly keep and therefore the Apostle exhorts us to live alwaies putting on that man lest at any time he fall off from us By saying this new man is created to God the Apostle meanes to the image or likenesse of God namely supernatural for even as Adam the first of men was not so properly said to be made like to God in respect of the natural creature he appeared to be as in regard of his invisible and supernatural being that is in grace sanctitie and truth so in us the new man imports the supernatural which according to God was created in us when by holy Baptisme we were regenerated whence we are truly created spiritual men by grace as often as from sinners we become Saints from unjust just from vicious holy from false true children of Almighty God 25. And that we may be preserved which is continually created and by new acts of grace become more and more Saints in this verse the Apostle bids us cast away all falshood all deceit all lying as members of the old man and not fit to be about the new one For since Christians have that happinesse to be members one of another as far forth as they make up the mystical body of Christ their Head therefore the Apostle tells them they ought to be as exact in telling truth to one another as the members of our natural body are exact each in the true performance of their duties the hand removing not laying danger in the heads way nor in the way of any other members of the body the feet bearing up and not letting fall the bulk of the walking body intrusted to them whilest the man is walking and this natural fidelitie in our natural members the Apostle exhibits unto us as an example of our veracity and truth to one another who are spiritual members each to other and consequently bound to be as faithful to our neighbour as sincere to him when he relyes upon us as our feet to the whole body whose weight relies on them and who walks in confidence they will not let the body fall whence it followes that a lie to our neighbour is as great a breach of trust as if we tripped up his heeles whilest he walks confident of our bidding him relie upon our supporting of him when yet by lying we deceive his trust 26. The Apostle doth not here command anger but supposing it just he bids us take heed it become not unjust or proceed not to sinne as who should say if you be justly provoked to anger against any evil in others take heed it proceed not to sin in your-selves Just anger is that which Saints have against sin not against sinners which parents have against children offending which Princes have against breaches of the Law when they punish the offenders for their faults without sin in themselves such as holy David meant was fit to have against Idolaters and persecutours of the just And indeed there is a kind of innate necessity in man to anger namely that which makes him use violence for the removing obstacles in his way to any heroical noble and just atchievement This anger the Apostle bids us so use as we take heed not to abuse it by letting it rise to the malice of a sin in us And when the sun is forbid to fall upon our anger he exhorts us to forbear continuing in it not that he allowes a continued act of anger all day provided we cease to be angry at night but that rather it should passe as fast as the sun doth over our heads that rather if we were angry towards sun-setting we should be sure to be quieted ere it were set that is immediately Note the Apostle here by anger meanes not the habit but the act thereof nor yet the moderate act of it neither when he bids the sun should not fall upon our anger for he means an excesse of anger a fury or wrath lest thereby as bees do when they sting we weaken our own vertues by acting revenge upon our neighbour and so endanger to sleep in sin which is understood by the sun setting on our anger and thereby hazzard the losse of our own soul that may in sleep depart without repentance which cannot probably happen in the day time and consequently diurnal anger is not so dangerous as nocturnal 27. And that this is the Apostles true meaning in the verse above these following words testifie For it is to give place or way to the devil to leave our selves at his mercy as it were at his advantage when we sleep in sin or when indeed we do waking continue in any sinful act with deliberation though it is also true that nothing layes us so much exposed to the devil as anger for it is a vice which takes away reason above all others insomuch as we usually say men act not like men but like beasts when they are furious and though a sudden fury may excuse sometimes from sin yet a continued one doth ever aggravate it and thereby gives more and more place to the devil which wrath or fury the Apostle here dehorteth from 28. He that when he was a Gentile did steal now that he is a Christian let him not steal because perfection is now required at his hands and to this perfection he must approach by degrees first casting off his old vices nay rather then steal for want of meanes to live himself let him labour about any good imployment that he may be able to give unto those who are in want and by so doing prevent in them the danger of stealing too So that Christian perfection stops not at moving every one to do good in himself but proceeds to prevent evil in others and so to prevent it as even by our handy labours to take away the cause that may tempt others to ill rather then for want of our labour expose them to the danger of evil doing By labouring that which is good is understood using honest labour and that for
tells them plainly of their dissimulation when he rebukes them and their hypocritical temptations for though they flatter to destroy him yet he reprehends to save them And thus we see an angry God is more profitable then a propitious man since the one cannot the other may deceive us or attempt at least so to do as here these people did even when they made the fairest shew of friendship to our Saviour 19. But Christ intending to give them a further check by seeming to go yet on towards the snares they had laid to intrap him calls for a piece of that coin which was called the tribute money being a piece to the value of six pence 20. And they giving him one of them he demands whose picture that was which he found stamped on the money not that he who knew their thoughts before could be ignorant whose coin it was they gave him but that he was desirous to give them a convincing answer to their capricious question by taking the ground of his answer out of their own mouthes and so to stop their mouthes by confounding them upon their own words 21. They tell him boldly it was Caesars namely Tiberius his coin the then Roman Emperour who had reigned eighteen years as Saint Luke sayes c. 3. v. 1. and was descended of Julius the first who took the name of Caesar as all the Roman Emperours did after Our Saviour hearing them say this answers in such sort as if he had wondred they could doubt of what they asked so be instantly replies if it be Caesars coin Give that to Caesar which is Caesars or rather surrender restore so reddite imports to your Sovereign the tribute of that coin which he gives you to repay it to him for you cannot your selves without breach of the law make your own coin but must onely use such as your Sovereign stamps and gives you as a token it is his and not your own because it bears his picture on it as you see And whereas you asked me this question with a seeming regard to God as if you would not have him offended by his peoples paying tribute to Gentiles know God expects the tribute of your hearts and not that of your purses open therefore your hearts to God your purses to your Princes so shall you comply with your duties to both Not that by this answer our Saviour did determine whether the Jews were tyrannically subjected to the Roman Empire for this was a question of some intricacy but that since he found themselves confesse the coin they had was Caesars and in using it that they did acknowledge themselves his subjects therefore he bid them give Caesar what was Caesars not determining the crown but at least the coin to be his due Yet if Christ had determined the crown to be Caesars too the one hundred years prescription that the Roman Emperours could pretend unto by a tacite consent all that while on the Jews part might well have avouched that determination and probably our Saviour did so conceive and so determine too by this answer Besides the question was not so much whether they were bound by humane Law as by divine for they seemed to pretend conscience and to think it might be a sin to God for a Jew to pay duty to a Gentile and to this Christ answers it may be lawfully and safely done in conscience if a Gentile be their lawfull Sovereign The Application 1. AS in this dayes Epistle sincerity is recommended so in the Gospel hypocrisie the contrary vice unto it is not onely reprehended by our Saviour but sincerity commended in bidding that be given unto Caesar which is Caesars and that to God which appertains to God 2. Nay more as conscience was pretended for the doubt these hypocrites proposed so the command resolving must be conscientious obliging under pain of sin O Christians learn from hence to make a conscience of your actions learn to let them be sincere indeed and not in shew alone so shall you make your sincerity the testimony of your sayntity if not your non-sincerity will still accuse you of iniquity 3. Alas what boots it to believe in God unlesse that belief be perfected by the like sincerity in our profession as accompanies the confession of our faith For as faith without works is dead so those works that are done without sincerity are rather works of infidelity then of true Christian faith What will hope in God avail us when our actions leading to the fruition of our hope mis-lead us for lack of sincerity therein What will that charity befriend us which is nothing but an unsincere affection to Almighty God while in sincerity of truth 't is but our selves we seek our selves we love in most of those professions which we make of serving and of loving God For remedy of which transcending non sincerity in all our actions holy Church Prayes as above to day that what we petition with sincere recourse to God and with the piety of our joynt praying mother may be effectually granted because it is at least sincerely asked On the three and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 9. v. 22. BVt Jesus being turned and seeing her said Have a good heart Daughter thy faith hath made thee safe Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer PArdon we beseech thee O Lord the offences of thy people that from the bonds of our sins which through our frailty we have contracted by thy benignity we may be delivered The Illustration HOw aptly do we pray to day for the pardon of our offences and to be delivered from the bonds of our sins by the benignity of our Lord which through our own frailty we have contracted since in this Epistle Saint Paul weeping complains that he finds even among Christians such grievous sinners as are enemies to the crosse of Christ such as make their belly their God and for so doing have destruction their end and confusion their glory and since he labours to reclaim them by laying his own life a pattern of sanctitie before their eyes beseeching them to have as himself had their conversation in heaven to emulate the gifts of glory exposed for reward to those that are good Christians and incouraging them the Philippians that were good to continue so naming for example to the rest certain godly matrons Euodia and Syntiche But how much more sutable is the Gospell to this prayer wherein we see the enormitie of sinne set out by the figure of death in Jairus his daughter and by the nastinesse of a long continued issue of bloud in another woman Both which corporall cures the Expositours apply unto a spirituall cure of all sinne whatsoever when they will have the Jewes to be represented by the dead daughter of Jairus restored to life and the Gentiles by the woman cured of her bloudy issue and consequently all the bands of sinne untied by the benignitie of God which were
contracted through the frailtie of humane nature when Christ our Lord came to shew mercy and give pardon not onely to his own chosen people the Jewes but even to all the Gentiles to all sinners how enormous soever Tell me now beloved is it not with reason Saint Gregory calls the prayers of holy Church Sacraments Mysteries when they are set to the same tune that the mysterious Scripture sings unto the people out of the Preachers mouthes for such we may account the Expositours of holy Writ to be And what marvell if we finde the Antiphon leading the tune to the prayer to point at the latter of these two women rather then at the former since we have heard this was a Gentile that a Jew For hence we that are Gentiles are taught to pray peculiarly for pardon of our owne sinnes moved thereunto especially by the benignitie of our Lord who though he first called the Jew yet he first converted the Gentile because as this Antiphon tells us the Gentiles faith was stronger then the Jews and therefore the obstinate Jew shall not be converted till the latter day when we are to have onely one shepheard and one fold of sheep one Christian Church made up both of Jews and Gentiles and for that reason we do not distinguish in the prayer between them because as it is now onely our prayer to God so hereafter it will be theirs as well as ours without putting the Church to the trouble of a new prayer upon that occasion of increasing the number of her children And assuredly that happy time will come with the greater increase if we with fervour say this prayer in the mean time first for the amâ—ndment of our own lives and for the perfecting our selves as in this dayes Epistle Saint Paul exhorteth us and next for the conversion of the stiff necked Jews prefigured to day in the after reviving of Jairus his daughter from death to life though Christ went first about that worâ— when he had before cured the woman of her twelve years issue of bloud first indeed calling the Jew but last converting him as was said above And for further reason of applying this prayer thus to the other service of the day I remit the pious Christian to the Expositours upon the 20.21.22 verses of the following Gospell Suffice it here is enough to shew that the connexion of parts in holy Churches services hath not been wanting hitherto in some measure or other and out of that little I am able to find I doubt not but deeper souls more habituated to meditation then I am will retrive much more The Epistle Philip. 3. v. 17. c. 4. v. 1. c. Chap. 3.17 Be ye followers of me Brethren and observe them that walk so as you have our form 18 For many walk whom often I told you of and now weeping also I tell you the enemies of the Crosse of Christ 19 Whos 's end is destruction whose God is the belly and their glorie in their confusion which mind worldly things 20 But our conversation is in heaven whence also we exspect the Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ 21 Who will reform the body of our humilitie configured to the body of his glory according to the operation whereby also he is able to subdue all things to himself Chap. 1. Therefore my dearest brethren and most desired my joy and my crown so stand in our Lord my dearest 2 Euodia I desire and Syntiche I beseech to be of one mind in our Lord. 3 Yea and I beseech thee my sincere companion help those women that have laboured with me in the Gospell with Clement and the rest my coadjutours whose names are in the book of life The Explication 17. BE not onely followers of my words but of my actions for so he means by bidding them walk live as they do who follow the form of his Apostolical life and actions Happy instructions for the Priests to do themselves as they exhort others to do and in this shew they are truly ministers of the new not of the old law whence Christ bid the people hear believe and obey but not to do as they did themselves that Mat. 23.4 laid huge burdens on their neighbours shoulders and would not carry the least burden on their own Happy sheep that had now shepherds who would not onely let them out into the pastures but defend them from the wolves by loosing their lives rather then expose their sheep to danger as S. Paul did who in persecution gave his flock a pattern of constancy even to the death rather then he would not follow to a tittle his own form whereby he had taught them born in peace and persecution how to serve God 18. This verse again argues the Apostle reports to good life as well as to doctrine when he tells them here many live contrary to the rule he had framed for them for though they beleeve rightly yet they live they walke awry they keep not the direct path of perfection but follow wayes of their own invention and are to those so fondly wedded that rather then leave their own brainsick imaginations they will even deny what no reason can doubt of These are Schismaticks and Sectaries of whom the Apostle often warned the faithfull and now with teares in his eyes moves the Philippians to beware of them again and tells them they are so far from being Christians that they are enemies to Christ for so he means here by the Crosse of Christ And why his enemies Because they mangle his doctrine in pieces believing what they list thereof and rejecting what they please Of this sort were in those dayes Simon Magus who said Christ himself went off from the Crosse and onely left his picture hanging there and Cerinthus who would needs separate Jesus from Christ and teach that Jesus did indeed truly die and rise again from the dead but that Christ was impassible and so went off from the Crosse leaving Jesus there to die Thus while they invent foolish pieties they become blasphemously impious whence it was Saint Paul said 1 Cor. 2.2 He knew nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified to shew the fondnesse of those who would separate Jesus from Christ and deny Christ to have suffered at all whence he calls these the enemies not of Jesus nor of Christ but of the Crosse of Christ that is such as deny Christ to have been really and truely crucified For beating down of which the Church brought up the use of crucifixes erected in all places And those also who make such simple imaginations the ground of Libertinisme Saint Paul calls enemies to the Crosse of Christ those who teach austeritie of life and mortification to be needlesse under pretence that Jesus hath suffered all punishment due for sinne and so pâ—ofesse it a kinde of injurie and prejudice to our Saviours passion for any man since that time to use mortification 19. But see the Apostles judgement of such Sectaries while he sayes
that number who according to holy Davids example Psal 118.109 have their soules alwayes in their hands that is to say who make account their every thought word or deed ought to be such as together with the same they are ready to deliver up their very souls into the hands of their Creatour and those souls so regulated as in this sodalitie we are taught according to the pattern of the blessed Virgin Mary Luke 2.19 who conserved in her heart every word that fell from the mouth of her sacred Sonne and as we shall then appear to conserve the same when out of the abundance of his holy word lodged in our hearts we make our mouths to speak and this we do whilest all our prayers are abstracts of the Word of God and all our conversation answerable to those prayers as if we can observe the methode of this book they will be And if beloved you but look upon the first contriver of this devotion Saint Gregory the great you will not undervalue it because it had so mean a reviver as my self Know it was he that called the Prayers of holy Church Mysteries Sacraments and surely for this one reason amongst the rest because they did mysteriously couch the sense of holy writ as we have hitherto assayed at least to shew and as to day we hope to make it appear this prayer above contains the sum of both Epistle and Gospell following though I confesse no soul would think it at first sight for in all the book there is not any prayer which holds a lesse visible proportion with the holy Text then this and yet if I mistake not we shall find it comes as home as heart can wish to our designe when once we shall resolve what is meant by the fruit of the divine work for that 's the key to all the treasure of Devotion couched in this prayer What if we say that fruit is our salvation since this is a work so truely divine that there is none indeed but God himselfe can bring forth such a fruit and yet so good a God we serve that he is pleased we shall our selves prepare this fruit and serve it up unto his heavenly Table while we are bid pray this day that since our understandings are already sufficiently instructed in our duties what they are and ought to be to God our wills may be stirred up to a performance of those duties to the more diligent preparing the fruits of the divine work the salvation of our soules that by redoubled diligence we may receive the greater remedies of God Almighties mercies meaning so much of his grace in this life as may secure us of his glory in the life to come which when with all the diligence imaginable we do obtain 't is still a mercy to us and must be gratis given or else we may justly fear to go without it so great a work it is to save a soul and therefore well is it called a work divine But what are we the nearer now for adjusting this Prayer unto the Epistle and Gospell of the day Admit this be the genuine sense of the Prayer above what report hath it to Judgement which is the subject of the Gospel Why this at least that the best preparative to save a soul is to remember the dreadfull day of doome and therefore when the Prayer beggs to have our wills stirred up to a more diligent preparing the fruits of the divine worke the salvation of our soules the Gospell puts us fitly in minde of the day of Judgement so to fright us into this diligence least through our sloth the Judge do want that crop of fruit which then he comes to gather And thus we seem to draw a little more neare at least to the end of our designe But if we reade the latter end of the Gospell comparing the day of Judgement to the sprouting out of a figg-tree we shall come nearer yet and if we hearken to the Expositours upon the 32 and 33 verses of this Gospell how sweetly they expound that Parable we shall then come fully home to the sweetest harmonie imaginable between the Gospell and the Prayer And for the Epistle it is nothing else but an exhortation of Saint Paul to the Colossians and in them to us how to prepare our soules to salvation even in the very language of the Prayer for example how to fructifie in all good works that we may at the latter day of doome whereof the Gospell minds us now be made worthie to partake of the lot of Saints to be delivered from the power of darkenesse and translated into the Kingdome of the Sonne of Love in whom we have redemption the remission of sinnes in a word the salvation of our soules or the ripening of that fruit which we must with all diligence prepare for the heavenly Table as beeing the worke of our heavenly Lord. When I say we doe consider this then we shall need no more to seek for a connexion between the preaching and the Prayer of holy Church to day in this period of our work wherein we were almost at a losse even now that we stood in greatest need of making good our whole designe in the close thereof And who can marvell now that this sweet Prayer should be suitable to the sower day of Judgement when we see that dreadfull story in the Gospell closed up with the gladsome Parable of a fruitfull Spring And why to shew that to the Blessed the day of doome is a time oâ— Joy and that the just alone are of consideration with Almightie God In a word please but to reade the Expositours upon that point as in the glosse below you find them and tell me then whether this Prayer doe want connexion unto that glosse of theirs if not then you will grant the Prayers of holy Church to be as Saint Gregory calls them Sacraments mysteries indeed of Pietie but such as when explained are sweet as honey and facile as we can desire For what more easie now then to see this Prayer alludes to Judgement in the same sense that holy Church desires her children should be ready for it that is to be prepared fruit for the heavenly Table and by that preparation to be worthie to receive the greater remedies of God Almighties mercies at the day of Judgement against the corruption of humane nature namely his gifts of glory added to those of grace And thus we shall close up the Ring of our devotion with the same Christian dutie we began it whilest mindfull of the day of doome we pray our wills may be raised up to an alacritie in our Christian dutie as they were by the same spirit of Prayer raised upon the same subject on the first Sunday of Advent which this foure and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost inclines unto in like manner as all parts of a circle bow to meet each other with a plie to circularitie and so the dutie of a Christian is then best performed
peace And here to shew the excesse of his grief he stops and sayes not what should follow to wit thou wouldest weep thy selfe as I doe now for thee thou wouldest weep to see what pains I have taken in my three years preaching of pennance to thee what more I am to take for thee whilest I die to save thee who wilt not be saved Yes all this sense runs through our Saviours soul and is genuinely taken out of this abrupt speech which because I see and thou dost not wilt not indeed therefore I weeep for thee O wretched city 43. This was to a title verified when Titus and the Romans laying seidge to Jerusalem after our Saviours death in three dayes space as Josephus writes built not onely Trenches but walls about them so as none could stirre out at any rate for relief whence mothers were fain to eat their own children So Josephus 44. So sensibly our Saviour speaks of this cities destruction that here he seems to exaggerate for it is not credible the Romans were either so curious or so idle as not to leave a stone upon a stone since there is now in that new city the old mount Calvary where many stones lay one upon the other So the meaning of this place is that the destruction of this city should be so great as if there had not been a stone left upon a stone within it whilest those that were left should be of no use nor profit By the time of the visitation understand this very time when our Saviour came a loving Messias to save this city and she would not receive him but plotted his death in requitall 45. See whither our Saviour goes as soon as he is entered the citie Into the Temple first to rectifie that which was out of order there So he first enters into our Temples into our souls when he adopts us to be his children It was not amisse to begin visibly to reform the visible abuses in the Temple especially since he see the hearts and souls of the high Priests would not be reformed by him 46. This was so palpable an abuse of the written word that none could question it and besides it was necessary to abolish open Sacriledge where there was to be established open Sanctity 47. To shew that thus Priests were to employ their times and their talents and not in secular companies or imployments at least not in merely secular but such as were mixed with Church duties The Application 1. HOw excellently wel doth holy Church follow her design in this Gospel which we perceive she had in the Epistle above For what else is meant by Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and foretelling her destruction but because she did to him while he marcht before her eyes as we have heard her children did to God while he mercifully led them through the red Sea and many other dangers out of Egypt into the land of promise What was their buying and selling in the Temple other then Idolatry to Mammon other then robbing God of that honour which they paid even in his own house unto his greatest enemy the devill For which you see our Saviour whipt them out of the Temple as was said in the Illustration above and not unnecessarily repeated here 2. O Catholick Christians how do we act this Jewish part how do we do our best to make our Jesus weep in Heaven if it were possible to see us Catholickes degenerate into the sordid actions of the Jewes What is it else to hear us murmure against our Lord for commanding us to he meeke and humble who have nothing in us but passion and pride who are with the Jewes ashamed of holy poverty while we clad our selves in nothing but gauderies more vainly farr then those whose Religion binds them not so strictly from such braveries as ours While instead of renouncing the vanity of the world we sell even God himself for hope of onely popular applause by frequenting the Church for vain respects to see and to be seen under pretence of praying there or of hearing the word of God which is to make Gods holy House a denne of thieves to rob him of his honour in that very place appointed onely for honouring and adoring of his holy Name 3. O how rarely well doth holy Church rebuke the Priests and Lay-men too in the Prayer she makes to day as an abstract of all the doctrine on those holy Texts when what so ever we do at other times she bids us while we pray at least refrain as is our duty to commit Idolatry to Fornicate to Tempt our Lord to murmure to swell with Pride to dissemble and to Simonize in holy Church For this were but to shut those sacred eares we praying doe pretend to open This were to aske unpleasing things to God not such as we are bid petition in the Prayer above pleasing to his heavenly Majesty On the tenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 18. v. 14. THis man went down to his house justified more then he for that every one who shall exalt himself shall be humbled and he who humbleth himself shall be exalted Vers Let my prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God who doest manifest thy omnipotency most of all by pardoning and taking pittie multiply on us thy mercy that we running unto thy promises thou maist make us partakers of thy heavenly treasures The Illustration STrange that holy Church should teach us in this Prayer the omnipotency of God is most manifested by his pardoning and pittying of us True his goodnesse and his love is thereby most of all made manifest but his power or his omnipotency seems manifested more in his creating all things out of nothing in his governing the world created so as to make contrary natures combine all in one to the fulfilling of his holy will and pleasure and in his punishing offenders who if they could resist his power would never indure eternall damnation as all the devils and accursed souls in hell are forc'd to do But if we look more narrowly into the businesse we shall find Gods power most manifested in his pardoning and pitâ—ying offenders For as by their sinnes they relapse into a far worser nothing then that they were created out of first of all so to be recreated as often as they sinne is to keep in exercise Gods omnipotency every minute in a manner since they hardly passe a minute without a sinne and if this be mortall they as often disannull themselves as they sinne mortally and since in this case they cannot be re-made again but by the omnipotency of him who can make all things out of nothing this omnipotency being manifested by the pardon and pitty God Almighty doth afford a sinner thus relapsing it followes evidently that the said omnipotency is made most manifest by such pardon and pitty as God affords to sinfull souls Which pitty being an Act of mercy we had need petition that
present good any longer in hope of we know not yet what future happinesse in our celestials therefore to shew the constancy of her charity in doing good holy Church begs it as a grace to day that she may not onely persevere in good works but further do them exactly and purely in honour of Gods holy Name least what may seem good in man's eye prove bad in the sight of his heavenly Majesty Say now the prayer above and see if it be not sutable to this application The Gospel Mat â—8 23 c. 23 Therefore is the Kingdom of Heaven likened to a man being a King that would make an account with his Servants 24 And when he began to make the account there was one presented unto him that owed him ten thousand talents 25 And not having whence to repay it his Lord commanded that he should be sold and his Wife and his Children and all that he had and it to be repayed 26 But that Steward falling down before him said Have patience towards me and I will repay thee all 27 And the Lord of that Servant moved with pity dismissed him and forgave him the debt 28 And when that Servant was gone forth he found one of his fellow-servants that did ow him a hundred pence and laying hands upon him throtled him saying Repay that thou owest 29 And his fellow servant falling down besought him saying Have patience towards me and I will repay thee all 30 And he would not but went his way and cast him into Prison till he repayed the debt 31 And his fellow servants seeing what was done were very sorry and they came and told their Lord all that was done 32 Then his Lord called him and said unto him Thou ungraciouâ— Servant I forgave thee all the debt because thou besoughtest me and oughtest not thou therefore also to have mercy upon thy fellow servant even as I had mercy upon thee 33 And his Lord being angry delivered him to the Tormentours untill he had repaid all the debt 34 So also shall my heavenly Father do to you if you forgive not every one his Brother from your hearts The Explication 23. THe sense of this verse is that look what this Parable reports to be done here between Debtour and Creditour on Earth the same will be done in Heaven between God and his Creatures wherefore not so much the Kingdom of Heaven as the course of it is here described in this Parable 24. By the number of ten thousand talents of money owing from the Servant to the Master is here assigned a certain for an uncertain Debt or indeed a finite for an infinite namely a mortal sin against Almighty God which how ever finite in the act is infinite in the malice because committed against an infinite Goodnesse So that by deadly sin a man becomes debtour to God and stands bound to repay him all the Gifts Virtues and Graces infused into his Soul by holy Baptisme and squandered away by any one deadly sin so the debt is of the treasure of Heaven the grace of the holy Ghost spent by a sinner which God trusted him with and which by sin he hath wasted 25. By this command to sell the non-solvent debtour as also his wife children and all the goods he hath is intimated that for any one mortal sin a man and all that is dear unto him is confiscate to Almighty God and ought to be sold to be cast into eternal pains and so though this be nothing towards repayment of the debt yet since he had sold grace Heaven God and all for sin now by right God should sell his sin body soul and all to the devil though still his goodnesse as long as man lives reserves a place for repentance such as in the following verse we find Note here the particularizing to sell wife and children adds nothing to the mystery more then to show man looseth himself and all that is dear unto him by sin 26. Alas what can poor man afford towards the repayment of so great a treasure when 't is wasted by him Hence the text sayes true nature cannot make good a debt of grace But yet if the creature do humbly prostrate it self at the feet of the Creatour and acknowledge with sorrow the fault oâ— incurring so great a debt and beg of God grace to make good what nature cannot then God his goodnesse is so great thaâ— he gives such a sorrowing soul so great a help of grace as makes him able to pay the debt to recover what he lost for so may the debtour have again as much as he had spent to repay thâ— Creditour since God the creditour accounts himself repaid for sin by his servants recovering grace which they had lost for the very truth is God cannot lose by any creature and he esteems so much of a creatures cooperation with his holy grace that in such a case he reckons his own gifts to man as a repayment of mans debt to him 27. This verse proves the former to be explicated in a right sense so it needs no more enlargement 28. This verse besides the ingratitude it showes in man to God not forgiving his brother Gods image as himself was forgiven so again it showes the narrownesse of mans heart and the largenesse of Gods one forgiving an infinite debt being but asked so to do the other not remitting a petty one by any entreaty whatsoever 29. Strange that we cannot kneel with humble heart to God but he relents and yet to man no bow of knee or heart prevailes Note here patience or forbearance of the debt was truly and properly demanded upon promise and just hope of payment after a while because it is not out of mans power to pay man what is due unto him though 't is impossible we can hope to make even scores with God unlesse he rather remit then demand the debt So the patience asked by the servant of his Lord was rather an artifice to gain time hoping by intervention of Friends rather to get the debt remitted then that there was any likelihood of this servants payment of it what fair promises so ever he made in the instant of his being pressed because that was a debt from a creature to God but this is onely a debt between man and man so here to delay was not to delude or elude the debt and considering it was asked of him for a little summ who had before obtained remission of an infinite great one truly the debt ought by all means to have been forborn if not forgiven 30. Here we see how true it is that the rigour of the law is highest injury This man did but use the rigour of the law yet he had before a pattern set him oâ— mercy from his master and therefore that ought to have moved him to show some favour at least and to forbear rigour But by this we are advertised how unchristian a thing it is in us to beg absolution for
our own deadly sinnes to God by means of confession and yet to refuse a pardon to those men that do but slightly offend us 31. This verse rather tells what infirmity is in man to man on earth then that we can think the Saints or Angels runne officiously to God and provoke him to take notice of our sinnes rather then begge him to turn his face away from them or to cast them at least behind him that if it were possible he might not see them So here the story is rather told to make it flow currantly as an act between man and man then as a true expression of the thing figured in the story 32. The following verse shows clearly God's â—trâ—se of our ingratitude to him and our want of brotherly love to one another so it needs no further exposition 33. 34. This wrath is just and so not to be wondred at By the tormenters here are understood the devils By lying till the debt be paid is to say eternally because no torment is punishment enough for mortall sinne which is of infinite malice and which malice continues eternally if man unfortunately dy in deadly sinne so no marvell his pain be eternall when the duration of the malice is without end All the doubt is here whether a sinne once forgiven by God can be recalled and man be damned for it as if he never had been forgiven so this story imports But the true sense of this place is that by this example was presented so great an ingratitude that it became a mortall sinne and consequently deserving damnation it did as good as bring back all the formerly remitted debt of sinne since to be damned for one only or for many sinns imports a desert of equall torments extensive though not intensive that is to say of as long though not as cruel or as bitter pains But to the thing intended by this Parable which is the obligation we have under pain of damnation to forgive our neighbour if we will hope to have God forgive us the story runnes right enough even in the rigour of the words so it needs the lesse glossing The Application 1. AS this Gospell we see is parabolicall so is it applicable at pleasure to the best of piety we can cull out of it Wherefore not to recapitulate what the Illustration or Explication above have told us already we shall do well to perswade our selves this own example of Ingratitude in our wicked fellow servant ought to be a motive to us of practising the contrary virtue not onely towards our common master who is ever obliging us but also towards our fellow servants who can never disoblige us if we remember that all the hurt we receive is from our selves 2. And again this Gospell minding us how the evil of Ingratitude was punished is therefore fitly placed after an Epistle of so much evil intended us as there we have heard to let us see that nothing but our good deeds can preserve us from those evil machinations against us 3. It is therefore as for a reward of doing good that Holy Church presumes to beg protection from all adversity in her childrens way and for their better means of doing good deeds sacred to the holy name of God shee hath to day drawn them all up into a Body least the enemy finding any stragling souldier of this holy Army fall upon him at a lonely disadvantage O Piety O Prudence of our holy Mother teaching us still To pray in consequence to what we Christians should be at according as she preacheth See how the Prayer above is sutable to this On the two and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 22. v. 21. REnder unto Caesar these things that are Caesars and to God those things which are Gods Vers Let my Prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God our refuge and strength be present thou the Authour of all piety to the godly Prayers of thy Church and grant that what we ask faithfully we may obtain effectually The Illustration I Must confesse that whosoever casts his eye upon the Antiphon taken out of this dayes Gospel and Prayer above will have small encouragement to think they speak both one sense and yet we must or make them do so or in vain we are come thus far towards the end of our Book and to fail now were to suffer shipwrack in our own haven after the having escaped many a storm abroad at Sea First therefore let us sound the depth of the water in this haven see the sense of the Prayer which in the entrance steers us right by bidding us call upon the Authour of piety Almighty God our refuge and strength and to petition he will be present to the godly prayers of holy Church and to grant that what we ask faithfully sincerely or cordially we may obtain effectually even to the full of our desires This certainly is the sense of the Prayer and further Glosse it needeth not nor God be thanked need we any more to shew it speaks the whole contents both of the Epistle and Gospel of the day For see how the trust in Jesus Christ which Saint Paul begins his Epistle with to day unto the Philippians speaks in other terms that which the Prayer calls refuge See how the strength of God is that whereby the good work of Christianity in us begun is made perfect even to the replenishing of us with the fruits of justice by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God as this Epistle concludes the Philippians were so replenished But that which yet more peculiarly appropriates this Prayer unto the Epistle is the sincerity which Saint Paul hopes will be the effect of their Christian charity and such an effect as to render them without offence unto the day of Christ And indeed 't is this sincerity which opens this cabinet of rich connexion to day between all the parts of holy Churches service since it is not to be hoped we shall effectually obtain any thing that we do not sincerely for that is here the sense of faithfully petition Almighty God and consequently if onely the want of sincerity debar us of our hopes where that sincerity is not wanting there we may hope to speed for all we ask and this hope being given us in the Prayer above renders this Epistle most conform unto the Prayer As for the Gospel if we take the words and do not mark to what sense they drive at we may boldly say no Gospel can be more dissonant then this below is to the Prayer above But if we see that from the first unto the last of the Gospel there is nothing but a juggle in the Pharisees to intrap our Saviour in his speeches and then surprise him most when they most do flatter him with the stile of Master of learned of upright of unpartial even unto Princes and the like when yet at the same time we see they aimed at nothing