humane nature was rendered unworthy of God's grace so that if at any time he communicated his blessings it was by way of advance and upon credit in consideration of the merits of his incarnate Son Wherefore being once come he gave precepts of higher perfection so that doubtless nothing can be better more just and more suitable to Man than the Evangelical Law Nothing more agreeable to the good Government of the Universe and all Creatures nor which contains in its decrees more equity and holiness Insomuch as its perfection alone seems ground enough to pass a judgment that it cannot issue but from the deep Councels of a Divinity Lastly as to good manners or natural precepts this great Architect hath made of them a more clear and ample explication by which the will is rectifyed and carried on to the pursuit of greater things than were proposed in the Mosaick Law What just reason then had our Petitioner to make this edifice of Jerusalem's Wall the object of his most fervent prayer and that all his subjects should subscribe to the petition and offer up their Vowes for the dispatch of this great work in which their heavy Yoak so little beneficial to them would be taken off and in exchange they were to be ranked under the discipline and law of grace and love wherefore let us joyn issue and cry Let the Walls of Jerusalem be built up The next composition of this structure is foretold by the Prophet Esay I will lay in the foundation of Sion a stone that hath endured the touch a corner and precious stone founded in the foundation This is Peter and his successours that rock on whom Christ hath built his Church and which hath been tryed by all the assaults of Earth and Hell Nor hath this stone proved only of right temper in which no engin of malice could work a flaw but it is shaped into a corner stone by which the two walls of Jews and Gentiles are united together and make one Christian Church It is also precious in copiously distributing her Spiritual Treasures throughout the World as the clear explication of her Doctrine by universal consent the rights of Sacraments which delivered with a Harmony and unity in faith is the bond of peace the Life and Soul of Religion Lastly it is grounded in the foundation which shews it to be a secondary foundation The first St. Paul declares no Man can lay any other foundation that is primary and Basis of all than what is already laid to wit Jesus Christ But after him the next groundwork is St. Peter by whom alone and his successours we are to arrive at Christ and what can be to God more glorious than to make use of the feeble to confound the strong and by faith and humility to lead Men unto wisdom and glory This piece of Workmanship in the Fabrick of Jerusalem is like a Citadel which commands all and holds its awful title not by Law of Nations but divine right It governs men in order to their Souls and rather under the notion of being Christians than Men it looks not upon their temporal ease and security but hath an Eye to a life and felicity immortal It is fortifyed with divine Lawes and maintains a perpetual skirmish not only with a few visible adversaries but with an infinity of invisible Enemies After this Rock solidly disposed and fited the Bishops like Watch-towers and strong Bastions are erected whose office is to superintend over the Guards and Sentinels and to protect the weaker part of the Walls from the Enemies assaults this contrivance is set down by St. Athanasius where he sayes O Peter upon thy Foundation the Bishops as pillars of the Church are setled and confirmed Then Priests Deacons and other officers are assigned to render this structure in all points compleat some of these materials are for the beauty and ornament of the Church in her great solemnities others as Priests for the necessary discharge of our duty to God for religion teaching us to pay that honor and esteem we owe to God is the perfection and accomplishment of the World nor can we upon any score be dispensed with in the acknowledgment of these fealties Whence no Nation hath ever been found so ignorant or barbarous as not to own and in some manner or other to pay this Tribute either by way of adoration praise prayer sacrifice festival solemnity or by some external Ceremony Now that these actions might be duly acquitted there appears an absolute necessity that some selected person should be set apart and sanctifyed to this end But above all it was most requisite in the Evangelical Law where a Priest hath power to offer up a victime and Sacrifice by which in a moment he renders to God more glory and service than all the Angels and Men can do in the vast durance of Eternity Where he is daily to represent to the eternal Father Christ's holy passion and by that moving object render him propitious unto Souls where he is to disengage Men from the slavery of sin and jawes of Hell by the administration of holy Sacraments So that all the splendour and beauty of the Church consists in the Ministery of Priests that as the Sun diffuses his beams on all sides no less doth this sacred Character enrich those Souls with a perfume of Sanctity who make themselves worthy by a due cooperation with its vertue so that we ought to esteem it one of the greatest blessings of God to the World in that he hath given us Ecclesiastical persons to dispense his Heavenly treasures and spiritual graces to enlighten the World purify Souls from sin and lead them as it were by the Hand unto a sovereign good Ah! what ingratitude then to throw a contempt upon those without whom Mankind would be but a Fire-brand for Hell in all Eternity The last materials for this Fabrick are lay and secular persons of all sorts so that of these and Ecclesiasticks are composed two different and great Nations under the Jurisdiction of Christ the Office of the one is to give the other to receive the one communicates by oblation of Sacrifice and administration of Sacraments spiritual goods without which Men would be like a Body destitute of a Soul having little tendency or elevation unto God the others passively make up the Hierarchy as being framed instructed purifyed and by Ecclesiasticks united unto God Thus you see our holy Prophet was solicitous in a matter of no small concern for within the limits of this sanctuary are bounded all the hopes of Man's Salvation Christ was made sayes St. Paul cause of eternal Salvation unto all those who obey him Now his Commandements relate to Faith good manners and the Sacraments which are not rightly performed but within the bosom of his Church Let us then joyn our hands and hearts to this noble structure and cry that the walls of Jerusalem be built up The Application If our Holy Penitent was so zealous for
painful accomplishment and fulfilling of them Again by the uncertain things of his wisdom imparted to him he insinuates a further knowledge as to this that it is not known to any in this life whether they are worthy of love or hatred Almighty God by a special providence no doubt having kept this shut up from us that whilst we lye under an awefull fear it might abate our pride and presumption Now the Clouds of this uncertainty were dispersed as to him assurance being given that his sin was removed and the Anathema annexed to it taken off and what greater evidence that he is re-admitted into favour than the entrusting secrets to him than his exemption from the Common Lawes set down by Providence for the conduct and guidance of Mankind These Reflections make him cherish with unspeakable satisfaction his priviledged notions nor do they carry him to vanity but to bless the source from whence they flow since gratitude exacts that tribute from him to whom thou hast laid open the uncertain and hidden things of thy wisdom The Application Here we may observe in what awe and terrour our Holy Penitent remained after his transgression that though the Seal was set to his pardon yet he thought this gave him no right to his former prerogative whose restitution he dares not ask he only presumed to repeat them to his dear Creatour that he might read therein his ingratitude who enriched with supernatural gifts reserved for his choice favourites and by means of which endowments he might have proved a saving Star to guide others to Heaven yet he hath not made use of them but to inure the Author of them and there wrought his Ruine where he might have erected to himself Trophies of glory Next he made this Repetition that he might ruminate upon the sad consequences of sin which so alters a Man that God himself knowes him not This is manifest in the Gospel where God said to the foolish Virgins and to those who had wrought miracles in his name Nescio vos I know you not Again Adam after his sin seemed to be lost to God who made enquiry after him Adam where art thou which imports I placed thee in prosperity and content but find thee now in wretchedness and misery So our Holy Penitent minds his dear God of the blessings he had once showred down upon him and being so signal as few besides since the Worlds Creation could boast of the like he hopes being now again admitted to his presence he may not only be revived in his memory but restored to his former endearments to which he disposes himself by this bashful expression thou hast O Lord made me happpy by the Communication of the secret and hidden things of thy wisdom CHAP. XV. Asperges me Hyssopo mundabor Thou shalt sprinkle me with Hysop and I shall be cleansed OUr Holy Penitent replenished with a Prophetick Spirit seems how to breath nothing but Divine Truths nothing which issues not from such inspired lights Behold wherefore he speaks at present in person of the Church and forespeaks the Oeconomy God will practise in the guidance of her Thou wilt sprinkle me sayes he with Hysop that is pressures will fall upon me from all sides for it is proper to Hysop to be of a small growth to take root in Stony and Rocky places and its vertue is Soveraign against tumours and swellings First then Christ beset his Church with Hysop when he planted her in himself the fruitful Womb of all her productions hear his Lesson Learn of me that am meek and humble of heart from such a stock what can be expected but lowly shrubs Hysop like he instructs his Apostles to bear the innocence of Lambs amidst ravenous VVolves the simplicity of Doves amidst wilely Serpents he bids them overcome Tyrants by sufferings opprobries and contumelies by a patient silence the glory of great ones by humility and the wealth of the World by Poverty With these arms the wisdom power and greatness of the World have been laid prostrate and the humble Cross of Christ erected in Triumph Maugre the malice of Hell and Idolators After Nero Decius Seperus Maximian Diocletian had raged and breathed from their Nostrils death and destruction to the harmless little ones of Christ affrighting them with fire VVheels Gridirons Gibbets Lyons Vipers and innumerable other tortures what was the event Julian the last and greatest persecutour confesses he hath lost the day and that the Contemptible Nazarean I remained Victorious St. Paul gives but a touch yet a dexterous one and represents to the life the posture wherein God hath founded his Church God sayes he seems to have marked our us Apostles unto Death for we are made a spectacle to God Angels and Men we suffer hunger and thirst we are reviled and buffeted we are tossed up and down hurried from one Tribunal to another we are laden with maledictions and in requital distribute blessings we are plyed with persecution but sustain we have blasphemies thrown at us yet we pray and petition in behalf of the Authors in fine we are looked upon as the soum of Mankind and become as the mockery of the World Behold the Epitome of a life Apostolical and the maximes to which the Primitive Christians conformed themselves by which you may judge how pat the allusion of Hysop is applyed to the Church for what is more abject and despicable than the institute of Christianity nay it was the usual argument of Infidels towards any person of eminency embracing Christian Religion to reproach them with the baseness and contemptibility of it The Rocky foundation also which gives life to the Hysops Root is no less suitable if you reflect upon the promises made to St. Paul when first he listed himself under Christs banner Ananias was to be the bearer of his letters Pattents the substance of them was that he should see what sufferings he must wade through for his Name and how punctual God was in the accomplishment of his word his own Epistles sufficiently declare that from the time of his conversion he had constant supplyes of tribulations from his unwearied preaching of the Gospel unto the Snares and malice of false accusations from thence to Prisons then to Chains Opprobries and lastly to a publick Death in the Capital City of the World Now that he alone was not doomed to these sad Catastropheys he tells us into what confusion poor Christians were universally in all places cast some lurking in Dennes others flying into desarts some groaning under want others exposed to scorn and contempt of whom the World sayes he was not worthy then he enumerates a multiplicity of horrid tortures which ushered their ignominious deaths And these outrages were not confined to any one Province or City but executed throughout the whole habitable World and to that height as one day was witness of a hundred thousand who were Sacrificed by the rage of Tyrants nay they fancied their work so compleatly finished
that Trophies were erected with this Inscription To the August Caesar Diocletian by whom Christian Religion is abolished and the worship of the God's improved These were the flinty soyls which gave life and growth to Christian Religion amidst these stony tryals the Church hath still kept herself firmly rooted in despight of all the storms tempests and whirlwinds of persecution The third property of Hysop that it is medicinal may justly be consigned to the furious assaults framed and put in Execution against the Church as St. Austin sayes Tyrants could never by obsequiousness and favour have so much contributed to the good of Martyrs as they did by their bloud-thirsting cruelties St. Paul glories in his tribulations and makes of them a ladder to lead him as it were by degrees unto Christian perfection whither he is no sooner arrived but his thoughts are filled with the expectation of a reward Nay he terms it a Crown of Justice as if every stroke of Persecution had contributed to the making up of his Crown unto which he had a right and just claim since hammered and compleated by his patient sufferings This same Apostle bids the Hebrews look back upon those past dayes wherein they had sustained immense Combats for the name of Christ as if those pleasing remembrances had been able to charm the most bitter afflictions Nay he thinks it a happiness when no burden was laid upon themselves if they did but converse and hold Society with the oppressed as if from them must needs issue forth some communication of what is good When our blessed Saviour had foretold to his Disciples the scandals of his passion and how the World would allot the same measure to them he gives the reason why these sharp decrees are made because sayes he you should fly to me for Sanctuary and only within my arms seek consolation and security St. Austin conformably to this Doctrine confesses Job to have lost all that God had given him yet he retained him from whom he had all to wit God our Lord sayes he hath given our Lord hath taken away the name of our Lord be praised Afterwards St. Austin rapt as it were into admiration cryes behold a Man with a Body mangled yet entire full of corruption yet comely wounded yet without a sore sprawling on a dunghil yet powerful in heaven Hence you may gather the exuberant Fruit of this sprinkled Hysop not a drop of it falls which carryes not along with it a vertue that transcends the malignity of persecution and the rage of Tyrants Who would then repine at adversity since Heaven hath laid it as the foundation at least medium to eternal felicity You that are poor tell me what you do want if you have God and the rich what possess they without God St. Paul relates how the Hebrews with joy sustained the rapine of their goods because they knew there is a more lasting and incomparably better inheritance prepared for them You that bewail the loss of a Friend remember he was not born to live alwayes here and perhaps was taken away lest malice might have seized him Besides if you truly love God you cannot be afflicted at your Friends Death since you know if he perish not to God he cannot perish to you and he alone can never be deprived of what is dear to him who makes God the Center of his happiness and places all that is precious in him since he is not lost unless we will If you groan under an infirm constitution know you should not desire to enjoy life but according to the tenour of its grant we breath under constellations which by their several influences create different humours and distempers and this is convenient to the good of the Vniverse unto which particular and private interests must give place Besides we learn by experience that since we can break and thwart our inclinations upon the score of health we may likewise do it from the motive of vertue and piety we hold it an act of Religion to wean our selves from sensual delights for the love of God let then resignation make that voluntary which accident or some providential decree hath reduced to a necessity you ought not therefore to calumniate this or that cause of your sickness but take it as a present from a most merciful and benign Parent ordained either for chastisement of your sins or tryal of your vertue this flatters not the unhappy humour of Avarice Ambition Lubricity and the like every access of a Feaver or other smart pain sets before us the lively Image of mortality and gives assurance we must one day quit all our Wordly interests It were not amiss also whilst our indisposition renders us unfit for humane Society that we fancy our selves as dead and consider what will be done in the World without us it subsisted before we were so will it remain when we are gone Who now seem so united in friendship that the thought of separation is horrid as Death will when a few dayes are slipped over after your Funeral seek other alliances and if by chance your memory be revived by any Casual discourse they will afford you a sigh perhaps and say you were good or wise or valiant or fair or some such Epethite you might deserve and is this worth all the labours and hazzards we run amidst a Million of designs in this uncertain life how blessed then is that sickness whose pains lead to Salvation and how fortunate that war which ends in eternal peace If the walls of a Prison affright propose to your self those immense spaces above the Heavens designed as a praemium of your restraint 't is true for the present you are deprived of a little fresh Air and of some other contentments depending on Liberty but he that trafficks for so great a purchase as eternal felicity may well venture something on the score of persecution How many disasters and Ambuscado's of Enemies have been avoided by Captivity what a change hath it wrought in many who by a necessity of Recollection have become supereminent Contemplatives and enlarged their Minds by Spiritual entertainments more than they could forfeit by the denyal of their Bodies liberty You are there free from Envy or detraction it being rare to find malice or cruelty to rage upon the prostrate A life in such a place is seldome attended on by scandals because adversity is the Companion a Mistress excelling in the wayes and maxims of goodness Nay could we fancy the World as really it is but a Prison we should rather think we have made an escape from Thraldome than lost our liberties Thus we see the sprinklings of Hysop that is the Seeds of Humility Patience and Constancy in the profession of Christ have furnished the Church Universal with Champions and every her particular Souldier in all encounters with Rules which if exactly observed cannot but end in Glory So that our Penitent hopes if once bathed in these purifying streams he shall be cleansed
purity is Religion by which we are taught to pay the tribute of excellency and respect unto God as the Sovereign Author and Primogenial Source of all Beings other Creatures who cannot comprehend the infinite perfections essentially seated in God have a right that their wants be supplyed by our Piety so that we have a duty of acknowledgement not only for our selves but in behalf of every thing created to our Service by an act then of Religion we return our own Being and all other Beings likewise of the whole World into his Hands from whence they came to be disposed off as he pleases that as we hold it from him so we would not enjoy it but for him and this from two considerations the one of God's immense greatness and Majesty the other of our own smalness or rather nothing as to the one our Penitent defies any Being to compare with God he confesses the Earth Seas and Heavens lye at his beck that his Enemies he disperses as the Sun doth the Shades of Night and having thus exalted his unmeasured greatness he then religiously exposes himself before him acknowledges he is a worm and not a man and if a man the very outcast and opprobry of Mankind He presumes to question God what man is that he should daign him a glance of his careful Eye and declares his opinion that he is but a piece of vanity an empty out-side a heap of dust and therefore it is but just in him to honour the Majesty of God by a profusion of what he enjoyes and that his Being can never be put to a better use than by annihilating it self if possibly to witness by that submission the immense perfections of his Creatour His fortitude in attempting great things needs no dilucidation the Sun-beams are not more conspicuous what Nation hath not received the History of his deeds together with the tydings of Christianity where also is set forth his patience in adversity in many rebellions unnatural stratagems and implacable hatred of Saul against him For his Faith in Christ amongst all the Prophecies of a Messias his Psalms excell in delineating and issuing a lively Character of all the passages of his passion So that all these vertues could not spring but from a hope of enjoying one day that Sovereign good for whose acquisition he was ready to Seal all these actions with his blood and life I confess this tincture of Snow to arise from a bloody stream might seem a wrested interpretation were it not that a passage in the Apocalips doth clear it where it is said they whitened their stoles in the blood of the Lamb that is the effect of this ablution gives innocence wipes off like Baptisme all the spots of Guilt or Pain so that once dipped in this Lavatory he may justly promise to himself a lovely Grain far surpassing that of Snow Wonder not then if our Petitioner touched with a sense of his transgressions and frighted with the memory of that condition wherein he had been plunged should aim at the glorious Palms of martyrdom both to secure his pardon purchase a compleat abolition of his Faults and make himself a perpetual Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to his dear Creatour Lord thou wilt wash me and I shall be whiter than Snow The Application Let us by the example of our Penitent thirst after these purifying streams one boisterous billow of Persecution carried home to the strugling Patient will have more vertue than all the waters of Jordan St. Gregory saith that the departing of the Body from the Soul is but a shadow but the departing of a Soul from God is a sad Truth And as a shadow is refreshing in Summer so is Death to the Righteous especially if voluntarily accepted and inflicted upon the account of a pious cause But since this Crown is out of our reach and depends upon anothers severity we must be thus severe to our selves as to put on an undaunted look against any difficulty which may obstruct our Salvation or advancement to pâ—…fection and resolve to suffer or overcome them either of which we may by the aid of Grace never wanting at a pinch Next we must rejoyce when harassed with adversities it is St Luke's declaration of the Apostles that they returned from Tribunal seats with joy having been made worthy to be there reviled and scorned for the name of Christ and truly Saints have seemed to measure their hopes of glory according to the proportion of their sufferings Lastly we are to expose our selves to hard and painful things for the spiritual good of our Neighbour if we strengthen our selves with these arms of fortitude we shall be fitted for that last and most glorious proof of valour at least secure an immense reward to our selves Amen CHAP. XVII Auditui meo dabis gaudium laetitiam Thou wilt give unto my hearing joy and gladness WHen the Church proclaims the sin of Adam happy in that it merited to have such and so great a Redeemer Methinks it hath some resemblance wâ—th this clause of our Petitioner where he promises to himself joy and gladness as if they were a necessary consequence to repentance In the precedent verse he minds his Creatour of the Rules he hath set down to purchase innocence to wit by temporal adversity here he opens the secret of God's working with a justifyed Soul which is to fill her with jubilies and consolation For when Almighty God enlightens our understanding to consider his greatness providence goodness and his other perfections and when he gives a touch to our Wills imprinting in them holy impulses of fear hope love and the like by which we are excited and enabled to frame and execute holy and pious resolutions he doth not this by a way of violence as a stone is taken up from its Center but by a way of sweetness he governs and changes our inclinations if we do not prove too stubborn So that the first step to our justification is not made without the concurrence of our Wills and questionless it is no small subject of joy to reflect that we our selves have been Actours in this great work of our justification which exceeds the Creation of Heaven Earth and all that is comprized in Nature for though we owe to God all that we have yet that his liberality may take its desired effect this he will have depend upon us to the end by working our Salvation it might prove an honour and satisfaction in that we our selves have contributed something to it by the consent of our free will by which we can claim the actions we do to be our own The next branch of joy and gladness in a justified Soul is the access of grace a supernatural form infused by God by which we are raised to a supernatural Being that is to say a new Being more prizable than an intellectula or reasonable than Angelical or Seraphical considered precisely in the order of Nature Because Grace gives a new
all their VVorldly interests and engagements to follow him what transports do the sweet whispers of his Divine Spirit occasion unto his dear Servants what internal consolations what tranquility of mind St. Austin terms them certain previous relishes or Antipasts of Heaven which far transcend all the contentment and satisfactions of this world In a word that Seraphim of love St. Austin gives us the perfect Character of a spiritual joy by his own experience Saying O Lord sometimes thou dost lead me into unknown delights which were they compleated in me I know not what they would be but certain I am it would not be this life that is such a Dilatation of Spirits he found to attend those spiritual comforts that he saw were they accomplished a ruine of his mortal Being must needs ensue This is the joy and gladness our Holy Petitioner expects and that he was not deceived in his expectation scarce a Psalm of his that proclaims not the sweetness and superabundant satisfactions issuing from the love fear and service of God and therefore when he had petitioned for persecution adversity and the Crown of Martyrdom he might justly solace himself with the sequel and fruits of sufferings which are joy and gladness To my hearing thou wilt give joy and gladness The Application Ah who would not then protest against the vain joyes of this world to tast the sweetness of spiritual entertainments St. Gregory puts this difference 'twixt Corporal and Spiritual delights that the former whilest in expectation are coveted with much vehemency but when once enjoyed they presently become nauseous and distastful the other we pursue but coldly and with little heat of desire yet when once we have a relish of them we still languish after the encrease This made St. Francis that blessed despiser of the World to make a Covenant with his senses never to fasten with the least Contentment on any sensual object and truly he was so exact in the performance as he went up and down like the meer shadow of a Man that had nothing humane in him but his shape his better part ever dwelling in the Mansion of the Blessed These are joyes that will not be held by Repentance may we then still languish after them Amen CHAP. XVIII Et exultabunt Ossa humiliata And humbled Bones shall rejoyce THis encouragement which our Petitioner allowes himself corresponds with the second part of the former verse where he was willing to Sacrifice his life For he doth not only cheer himself in reflecting upon the reward which repentance will bring to his Soul but likewise upon the future condition of his Earthly mould which he beholds as matter of great consolation and therefore upon the same score he prosecutes the Subject of his hope saying that his humbled Bones shall rejoyce Amongst all the comforts Christian Religion affords there is none hath so much influence upon Man as the expectation of a future resurrection the motive of this consolation springs from the belief we have of God's Omnipotency For as we believe he hath created us of nothing so we must acknowledge his power to restore us and raise our ashes to a better and more happy condition Nay if we observe the course of Holy Scripture we shall find the expiration of Saints hath a particular expression given it For they are not said to dye but to fall into a sleep as if their Bodies after separation retained a certain vertue which had resemblance with their glorifyed Souls In the Fourth Book of Kings Chap. 13. We read that a Carkass being thrown into the Sepulchre of Elizeus was by a touch of his Bones restored to life St. Hierom relates how Constantine the Great conveyed with much Solemnity the relicks of St Andrew and St. Luke unto Constantinople Areadius likewise the Emperour translated the relicks of Samuel the Prophet from Judaea into Thrasia where they were received with great veneration and joy of the people All which shews our Forefathers looked upon the remainder of Saints Bodies not as liveless fragments but as the Fountains of life and health as certain pieces God would make instrumental to miracles and to works above the power of nature Therefore the Bones of Holy Persons endued with such vertue may justly be qualifyed with joy and consequently it is not improper to say That humbled Bones shall rejoyce Again St. John Damascene hath a fine conception saying those who imitate the vertues of Saints may be more truly said their relicks or impressions than the lump and mass of Earth they leave behind He who hath the zeal and ardours of a St. Paul in the Conversion of Souls may be stiled his lively Image Who can claim the fortitude of a St. Stephen in accepting the stroke of Death for Justice sake will infallibly bear the stamp of that Protomartyr Who can perform the humble and spiritual life of a St. Francis will prove a better pattern of him than his own Body which at this day remains entire at Assisium as a Testimony of that Glory his Soul enjoyes in Heaven so that when we cast our selves into the mould of their vertues we become their animated statues and make them rejoyce in our imitation as the Angels do at a sinners Conversion it is not unlikely our Holy Prophet alluded to such living relicks vvhen he said humbled bones shall rejoyce Since good Men are here for the most part crushed in the Worlds esteem that values nothing but what is great in vanity Yet amidst these Clouds of oppression and scorns thrown at them they find within themselves a satisfaction in performing their duty to God for the fruit of the spirit sayes St. Paul is joy peace and a thousand other contentments which attend a state of innocence so that it is an ingenious Expression of our Penitent that humbled bones shall rejoyce I have many times wondered why Almighty God should give unto the Ashes of Saints what he had denyed them whilst they were alive and made not use of any limb or vital motion but for his sake that is many miracles have been wrought by touching the mouldred dust of Saints who living were never favoured with the power of any Miracle but as the lives of Saints are admirable so the proceedings of Almighty God with them seem very mysterious yet I have proposed some reasons of this to my sell First Almighty God will shew by this how dear his Servants are unto him and if he give so much vertue to their Ashes what may we expect he doth to their Immortal Souls Next it argues how grateful a thing humility is in the sight of God that those who have Crucifyed their flesh and daily Sacrificed their Bodies for his name should have the very Ashes of that Mortified Body cure Diseases restore sight to the blind and raise the dead to life Thirdly Almighty God will manifest the difference between a pampered Body and one mangled by acts of pennance the one by all manner of
any stop as if the Sage ruler of all things took no cognizance of their actions and which is done parhaps from a foresight they will persevere to the end in wickedness and having performed acts of moral vertues God allowes them a little calm in this life But in our sense when God passes over as undiscerned our faults he remits them without punishment and so seems to have been a stranger to our misdeeds but yet he never doth this that is never turns away his Face from our sins unless we first turn our Face upon them placing them before our Eyes and touched with a horrour at their deformity abjure and protest against them having done this we must then expose that abstract of wonders Christ Jesus before the Eternal Father that his wounded body may serve as a bulwark to defend us and appease his angry looks which implies the aversion of his Face or fury from us Our penitent having in this manner made his way he hopes the effect will follow that God averting his Face in that act will give him an abolition of his crimes that so he may reap the fruit of a Holy penitential fear We kow St. Peter fared not the worse when prompted by a low esteem of himself he requested his Lord to withdraw from him because a sinner No more did the good Centurion lose any thing in acknowledging his little of merit to have his house blessed and made happy by Christ's presence So our Penitent's awful respect in declining the Face of his Creatour springing from a sense of his own unworthiness and believing his sins an object unfit for an Eye so pure and unstained may perhaps draw benedictions upon him and contribute in a large measure to his happiness Wherefore he goes on still repeating turn away thy face from my sins The Application From this discourse we may learn the agitations of a Soul which hath once been defiled with sin sometimes he Figures God unto him as an angry judge and is affrighted to appear before him then again as a purity so compleat and Essential that though he should be conscious of no guilt as having been cleansed and washed as white as Snow he dares not yet stand to the examen Nay on the contrary it makes him petition to have that face which is the joy of Angels to be diverted from him we must then in imitation of our penitent fix only to this comfort that humility repentance and reverential thoughts though they keep us here depressed and under hatches will at last render that face we would now decline through the terrour of our Sins amiable and pleasing into our possession whereon we may gaze and feed our glorifyed Senses for all Eternity Amen CHAP. XX. Et omnes iniquitates meas dele And wipe away all my iniquities ST Cyril of Alexandria saith in the jâ—…stification of a sinner are required certain previous dispositions amongst which he reckons up faith hope repentance and fear Whence I conceive the apprehension of our Holy Penitent lest God should fasten his regards upon his iniquities mentioned in the preceeding verse was initiative and preliminary to his present address That his iniquities may be wiped away St. Austin holds it a thing most rare that any should embrace Christian Religion who have not first received within them an impression of the fear of God That the Ninivites became Penitent and shrowded themselves under a veil of Sackcloth and Ashes The only cause was a fear of vengeance threatned them by the preaching of Jonas St. Hierom upon the First Chapter of Malachy sayes behold O Lord how the fear of punishment diverts us from evil and that the priviledge of being your Children arises from a servile apprehension Our Penitent was not ignorant of this when after a dread conceived of God's judgments he immediately proceeds as if prepared by that terrour to demand an abolition of his crimes Wipe away my iniquities Besides he here explicates himself more fully that in case he do procure the Face of God to be averted then he is confident the sequel will be an expulsion of sin by grace For it were absurd that faith love and other qualities inherent should be necessary to dispose us for pardon and yet the formal effect to be extrinsecal and a justice not ours but imputed to us St. Paul desides this in his Epistle to the Colossians Christ hath freed us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of the love of his Son Where you see the infusion of justice by which a Man becomes pious succeeds to the Remission of sin by which we cease to be impious and just as the Air by the same ray of the Sun hath not only its darkness expelled but also is filled with light so that true Son of Justice communicating unto Man his divine grace doth at once by this gift disperse the Clouds of sin and replenish him with the splendour of inherent Justice The same Apostlâ—… Rom. 5. takes away all doubt in this point saying that the grace of God is diffused into our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given unto us and that no mistake in this Text may happen St. Austin explicates it in this Sense The charity of God is said to fill our hearts not with that love by which he loves us but by â—heâ—…by which we love him It is then in this fountain of love which springs within us whose over-flowing streams arise from Christ's donation in these we are washed we are sanctifyed and made just by this regeneration we are said to become a new Creature and from an Enemy purchase the title of being the Son of God all which powerfully import a mutation and real change within us St. John in his First Epistle sayes he that doth justice is just Abel was just in that he sacrificed unto God with all the circumstances of homage due unto a supream Being Noah just in that he gave credit unto God feared his judgements and obeyed his commands St. Luke affirms Zachary and Elizabeth to be just from their compliance and obedience to Divine precepts so that it is clear the Principle of their justification was inherent and that nothing extrinsick or imputative can be the formal cause of our actions for if not issuing from something within us we cannot own them to be ours Our Holy Penitent filled with supernatural illustrations was not a stranger to Divine Lawes established in order to Man's conversion Wherefore he knew well his Petition to have his iniquities strook off involved the gift of grace by whose power alone they were to be destroyed Nay even Natural Reason will lead us to this Truth for justification is a motion from sin to justice whence its name is derived as calefaction from heat Now it is evident to expell cold will not be thought calefaction unless the quality of heat be introduced So the bare remission of sin cannot amount to an act of justification without the consecution
when they prevaricate by injustice falshood irreverence to God impenitency and the like they act against a Law-giver which is God himself and against a Law that took birth with their Creation and is the Model and Rule of humane Lawes which without conformity to this Law are not Lawes but injustice and tyranny I will teach the wicked thy wayes The third remonstrance of our enflamed Doctour is to inform the wicked that positive Divine Lawes are necessary not only to rectify their wandring steps but also to preserve the just in their righteous paths The reason is Man is designed to a supernatural end to arrive at which his natural faculties are deficient wherefore it was requisite he should have supernatural precepts and rules proportioned to the sublime condition of his end Besides after he had exchanged a state of innocency for that of sin and corruption he stood in need of a Master who might instruct him how disastrous a thing sin is how necessary to have a redeemer all which Divine Lawes do open unto him Again to observe even the Lawes of Nature would have been a hard task if he aspired not after somthing more sublime for the efforts of his Soul are so clogged by the violence of his passions and his nature so weakned by sin that unless divine positive laws had engaged man unto heavenly pursuits scarce would he ever have been able to reach the perfect observance of the Law of nature Lastly it was necessary he should have alwayes before his Eyes his dependency and subjection unto God so to be stirred up to the performance of his duty and by giving testimony of his faithful obedience merit something at his hands wherefore his Creation was no sooner finished but God laid a command upon him that he might know even in Paradise he had a Master Next he consecrated the Seventh day to works of his service obliging the first inhabitants of the Earth to its observance Moreover those first Men of the World were obliged to the supernatural vertues of Faith Hope and Charity without which acts they could not be saved now those decrees were positive Lawes and superadded to those of nature so that in all times Men were never left purely to the Law of nature but it was intermixed with several positive ordinations that might help them on more advantagiously in the way of their Salvation Our Holy Penitent having thus exposed before the wicked the endearing providence of God over mankind who never abandoned them to the sole instinct of nature and conduct of their own Reason but like a careful Master teaching them his will by himself and giveing them particular directions to lead them in the way of vertue he would not stop there but proceed to a further elucidation of God's benefits towards them that at last overcome by his goodness they might lay down their arms and think it no dishonour to lye prostrate at the feet of so noble a Conquerour which if our penitent can effect he will repeat with much joy I will teâ—ch the wicked thy ways Our zealous convert plyes the Iron whilst it is hot hoping to render the wicked more malleable wherefore he produces the Mosaick law given by God to sanctify the Children of Abraham and dispose the World for the knowledge belief and honorable reception of Jesus Christ The Law consisted in precepts moral ceremonial and judicial The first contained the Ten Commandments and divers others relating to them and though the Law of nature led to their observance yet many errours were committed in reference to them which were cleared and better regulated by positive Lawes The Ceremonial were ordained in order to the worship of God regulating what belongs to the Sacraments Temple institution of fasts and bloody Sacrifice of Beasts wherein God manifested his justice declaring that sin deserved Death and likewise his Mercy in that he would exchange the death of a sinner for that of a poor animal The third are judicial which conspire to the establishment of a rare Government amongst the Jews that by an admirable policy being kept in peace Religion might flourish the number of their Laws amount to above six hundred an Argument of God's indulgence towards them For the Jews being stupid and of a gross apprehension uncapable of being led by general rules as not knowing how to apply them in particular emergencies he was pleased in every point to satisfy and instruct them Nay his particular providence here in appears that delivering so many Articles for their observance he seems to take upon him the whole care of providing for their temporals as well as spirituals as if he would keep a watch over every step and motion of theirs to the end all things might be exact and setled in the highest order He designed them likewise to be a pattern of Holiness and Sanctity to the Gentiles that by their example they might be drawn from the corruption of Idolatry to the real sentiments of vertue and religion wherefore he planted them in the midst of the habitable world Lastly it was just that Nation should be the most Religious and Pious from whence Jesus Christ was to issue forth that they might prefigure publish and engrave him in the hearts and minds of Men by their holy Ceremonies and legal observances which were all to represent him and the wonders of his life and death for this cause the kingdome of the Jews was prophetick and their religious actions a figure of the qualities condition and mysteries of Jesus Christ Nay all the worship and service which God required of that Nation and all the Exercise of their Religion was meerly to foretel announce expect and receive the Messias wherefore St. Paul calls it a holy Law abounding in Ceremonies and all tending to this effect I cannot doubt but our great Doctour and Prophet did with much Energy insist upon the designed End of the Mosaick Law which is Jesus Christ representing to the wicked that the sole way to Salvation was by repentance and belief in the Messias exhorting them to joyn with him in the practice of Heroick acts of vertues so to expedite his coming and repeat after him this his daily Prayer who will give us from Sion the Saviour of Israel He told them there was not a sigh or languishment any prayer or good work directed for the accelleration of this mystery which had not its effect that Abraham advanced it much by his prodigious act of obedience in offering to Sacrifice his Son and after he had run over all the Gests of Saints till his time he conclude all these motives would have been little efficacious without the charity mercy and love of God to lost Man St. John attributes the glory of this Action to love alone and if some have compared the vigour of love to equal that of death I dare give it a higher Encomium and will say it was so generous as to transport it self up to Heaven and assault the Divinity
and forcibly entered by Cyrus King of the Medes he resolved rather than become a scornful prisoner to dye on the places upon which design he cast himself into the midst of his Enemies preferring an honorable death before an opprobrious life His Son beholding his imminent danger though to that instant at the Age of twenty years he had been alwayes dumb cryed out spare my Father spare my Father it is the King Whereupon the Enemy seised his person and preserved his life some attribute this to a natural cause alledging the love this Prince had for his Father put all his vital spirits into combustion and by that violent motion broke the obstacle of his speech However methinks this passage may in some sense be applyed to our great Penitent who was morally dumb the Organs of his Soul structed by the malignity of sin insomuch as he could not utter one syllable which might have force to reach the Ears of his Creatour untill he came to have a prospect of his eternal ruine and no sooner these Terrours appeared before him but all the faculties of his Soul were stirred up removed all Obstacles and made him Petition for the opening his Lips the first motion to his happiness Lord thou wilt open my Lips For this imports not a local division of the Lips but an inflamation of the heart by vertue of which heat all the parts of his Body will be disposed to discharge those functions for which they were created St Paul to shew how little Man can do if left to himself sayes 1 Cor. 4. What do we possess which we have not received and if so why glory we in it as if our own Again he powerfully asserts it in the Eighth Chapter to the Romans It is not he who wills or runs but he on whom God will have mercy As if he would say as Esau in vain pursued his Chase thinking from thence to derive to himself his Fathers blessing So Man after sin loses but his time and endeavour if he think by the strength of his natural faculties to be able to observe the Commandements of God or perform what is requisite to the purchase of Heaven So that it must chiefly spring from the mercy of God's assisting grace Nay which is more we cannot so much as desire to serve God according to our obligations unless he first by his divine grace move our hearts and dispose our will unto it as the same St. Paul sayes God works in us both the will and the execution without God assisting we cannot have a desire neither to believe what is proposed as the object of Faith nor perform what we should in order to vertuous actions and therefore St. Austin sayes the prodigal Son had never resolved to return home to his Father if the mercy of God had not inspired him to it To manifest this truth we need go no further than to cast our thoughts upon the Grecian and Roman learning which produced the greatest wits in the World yet in all their inquisition after a sovereign good they were so lost as even to become ridiculous acting things concerning a Deity and Man's supream felicity as if they were destitute of reason St. Paul takes notice in particular how coming to Athens he found an Altar dedicated to an unknown God For they had been visited with a great pestilence and ignorant for what offence a chastisement so severe was inflicted at last fancied it was for want of homage to be rendered to some Deity not yet discovered than this what could be more absurd to shew in what darkness and errours Man doth grope when left to himself So that if at any time a person blushes at his vanities and past extravagancies and doth confess that what before he behold as light and life to be nothing else than obscurity and death this Conversion sayes St. Austin comes not from himself but from the powerful and hidden grace of God which dissipates the Clouds of Earthly opinions and enflames his heart with a desire of knowing the truth Now this change God works in Souls several wayes in some more gently in others more forcibly Solomon insinuates that he particularly gives his call by the outward preaching of his word this Esai confirms Chap. 40. God hath sent Doctors of his Faith into the World who should reduce their Brethren like the blind into the way that is unto Jesus Christ the Messias who is styled the way truth and life In this manner Surius recounts Barlaam was sent to Josaphat Son to a King in the Indies that by his conversion the whole Kingdom might embrace the Law of Christ St. Paul was sent to Athens who converted the great St. Dennis a famous Doctor of the Areopagites St. Philip to the Eunuch of the Ethiopian Queen who by expounding unto him a Prophecy of Christ in Esai immediately received Baptism at his hands In the History of Japonia it is related of a certain Indian who had lived well according to the light of nature how he was restless in his Mind believing his religion to be false he went to the Turks thinking to follow theirs but finding there no satisfaction then he applyed himself to the Jews but still remained in perplexity so that with much fervour he was wont to cry out O God let me know who thou art and that I may serve thee according to thy will otherwise do not charge me with blame for my errour At last it happened St. Francis Xavierus came into the Town where he was and no sooner did he hear him unfold the points and sacred mysteries of Christian Religion but he proclaimed that Man preaches the God I must serve and forth with was baptized By this expedient he likewise made a conquest of our Holy Penitent in which action Nathan the Prophet was instrumental who laying before him his obligations to God and his ingratitude occasioned that without delay he had recourse to the Sanctuary of this present petition or Miserere The second manner of his call is by the inward operation of his Spirit and this he communicates to all witness St. Paul 1 Cor. 4. God who drew light from darkness by a word from his mouth hath filled our hearts with the splendour of his knowledge For without this light of Faith Man knowes not God who made him he knowes not whither he tends he knowes not eternal felicity for which he was created nay he knowes not himself for without Faith we know not that we are born Imps of wrath and lyable to eternal death We know not the wounds of our nature our inability to good the necessity of being regenerated by grace Lastly without this interiour light we know not Christ our Mediatour by whose pretious blood we are Redeemed from eternal damnation and restored to a life of Grace and Glory But you will say if God imparts this light of faith to all how comes it so many remain in darkness and infidelity of this the reason is