exaltation when Saint Peter in his Epistle tels us we that are Christians are called to suffer with Christ who gave us example by his sufferings to follow his steps even unto death for him who did vouchsafe to dye for us And is not this the full sence of the Prayer As for the Gospell if we look with a regardfull eye upon it 't is but the same sence in other words for while it runs upon the nature of a Shepheard it never comes unto the hight of his commends untill it layes him low as death to save his sheep so still it drives to that abasement which is our exaltation and drawes us sweetly on to dye for him while it gives us an example of confidence that admits no fear because there is no security but in Trust and who can we trust more safely then him that knowes no guile our Saviour Jesus Christ who rather dyes in us then we can dye for him and if he dye it is that we may live and joy eternally with him that by his resurrection conquered death Thus do the sparkes of spirit flye from every letter of the Holy Text when they are strook against the steele of this dayes Prayer and thus the high dignity of Pastorate acquires a glory from the lowest stoop the Pastor makes even that to death so in a word our highest sanctity consists in our lowest humility as this dayes Prayer Epistle and Gospel do all avouch The Epistle 1 Pet. 2. v. 21 c. 21 For unto this are you called because Christ also suffered for us leaving you an example that you may follow his steps 32 Who did no sinne neither was guile found in his mouth 23 VVho when he was reviled did not revile when he suffered he threatned not but delivered himselfe to him that Iudged him unjustly 24 VVho himselfe bare our sinnes in his body upon the Tree that dead to sins we may live to justice by whose stripes you are healed 25 For you were as sheep straying but you are converted now to the Pastor and Bishop of your soules The Explication 21. SAint Peter had before advised to bear patiently not onely just punishments inflicted on the faithfull to whom he writ dispersed as they were some here some there of Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia but also to bear injuries with the like patience saying that to this Christians were called because Christ did suffer for us most unjustly leaving us example to doe the like if need were and as there were three causes which moved God to become man this last is one of them The first was by his death to redeeme us the second by his preaching to teach us the third by his example to draw us to imitate his sanctity of life And to this last the Apostle now chiefely exhorts in this place as we see by the following verse contrary to the Hereticks Doctrine who hold it needless Christ having dyed for our sinnes that man himselfe use any mortification or doe any penance at all 22. Nor could he do any because he was God as well as man and hence Calvins Doctrine teaching Christ was a reall sinner and that he was in regard of his sins afraid to dye and did sweat bloud for fear thereof were all most abominable blasphemies because though in Christ there were two natures humane and divine yet there was in him but one person so had that person sinned God had sinned as well as man since the actions are attributed to the suppositum or person not to the natures contracted by the person but see the Apostle mindes us that Christ was not onely free from sin of fact but also of word and consequently of thought which is by word expressed nor is this marvell since out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Matt. c. 12. v. 34. but certainly God was the most abounding in Jesus his heart and so his words were all holy he being the very word of the eternall Father to whom as nothing is more proper then veracity so nothing is more improper then falsity or dissimulation fraud or guile 23 As indeed he was reviled when they called him drunkard raiser of seditions blasphemer nay conjurer or devill as casting out devils in the devils name yet did not he revile those who used him so ill nor did he recriminate as commonly men doe that excuse their own sins by casting other mens faults in their dish though in pure charity we read in Saint Matthew cap. 23. How roundly he did rebuke the Jewes to see if by a temporall check he could preserve them from eternall paines of hell which is a far other aime then those use who excuse themselves by way of recrimination of others for their end is not charity but passion or revenge and when he might have terrified the Judges that unjustly did condemne him he did not give them the least threat but gave himselfe up to the hands of Pilate his unjust judge how farre short are we of following this example whose whole indeavors are in all our actions even in those that are unjust to justifie our selves whereas if we would follow Saint Bernards counsell we should finde a remedy for all evils and injuries done unto us in the passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 24. The Apostle here assimilates Christ to the Emissary Goat in Levit. cap. 16. v. 21. Sent out into the desert loaden with all the sinnes of the people and so Christ came into the desert of this world out of his Eternall Fathers heavenly Pallace carrying all our sinnes upon his shoulders though by sins here is not understood the fact or guilt thereof but the punishment due unto them by the tree is meant the Crosse of Christ whereon while he dies hee represents us to his heavenly Father as dead to sinne because he dyes for us and for our sins whereupon Saint Ambrose sayes divinely well c. It was not our Life but our Sinne which dyed when Christ our Saviour dyed upon the Crosse So we being dead by that meanes to sinne may live to justice that is in the sight of the just Judge may deserve Eternall life in heaven for living justly here on earth O Soveraigne Stripes which bruising Christs body do cure our Soules more ulcerated with sinne then his body was with stripes 25. Straying we were indeed from God from vertue from Salvation from heaven and running to the devill to vice to damnation to hell had not Christ our Shepheard â—â—duced us to his fold againe by converting us to an amendment of our lives and winning us to follow the Footsteps of our heavenly Pastor and Bishop of our Soules See Bishops are metaphorically called Pastors because as shepheards feed their sheep so do Bishops by Doctrine and example feed the soules of men but Christ is eminentially called both as feeding soules not onely by grace here but with glory in the next world The Application 1. HOw sweetly Holy Church
ebrieties commessations and such like as I have foretold that they who do such things shall not obtaine the Kingdome of Heaven 22 But the fruit of the spirit is Charitie Joy Peace Patience Benignitie Goodnesse Longanimitie 23 Mildnesse Faith Modestie Continence Chastitie against such there is no Law 24 And they that be Christs have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscences The Explication 16. THe summe of all he aimes at in this Epistle is to advise the Galatians to walk in the spirit after the dictamen of grace and not of nature after the instinct of the holy Ghost and not of their own corrupted judgements and by this meanâ— he tells them they shall avoid the accomplishment of fleshly desires how ever they may be tempted therewith 17. Hence the Manicheans and some Philosophers held there were two souls in man one spirituall the other carnall this of God that of the devil But the Catholick doctrine is otherwise that by one onely rationall soul in man are performed the operations of vegetative sensitive and reasonable souls Hence we see the reason why some good men sinne because they do not what they would what their spirit desires but what their flesh prevaileth for by a greater desire And indeed man is made up of these two contraries to show his life is a perpetuall warfare upon earth between the flesh and the spirit 18 This verse hath diverse senses but the genuine is if we be so led by the spirit of God as we doe what the same spirit dictates then we are not under the Law subject unto it or guiltie of the breach thereof Not that the Law ceaseth to oblige us but that we forbear to offend the Law and so are as it were rather above then under it whilest we walke under the Law of the spirit and in so doing rather trample it under us then break the Law which is onely made against transgressours not against the Just for against those there is no law saith the Apostle by and by against those who walk according to the dictamen of the Spirit 19. By the flesh we are here to understand the concupiscence thereof which leads to the vices afterwards enumerated namely fornication which is properly simple carnal knowledge between man and woman without other circumstances of adultery rape incest or the like Uncleannesse is properly that mollities or softnesse rather easinesse indeed to carnal delight which causeth single pollution without commixture of two bodies Impudicity is properly immodest kisses or touches between two persons Leâ—hery is properly any unlawful carnal delight which is extraordinary and so mortal This may be called also Lasciviousnesse which for the excesse transcends and passerh over all the special kinds of lust that are above named or can be indeed imagined and this excesse may be committed even between man and wife by undue knowledge of one another or by intemperance even in the due wayes of their mutual knowledge 20. By this verse enumerating acts of the soul amongst the works of the flesh we are taught that concupiscence resides as well in the soul as in the body of man and was left as a perpetual punishment of Adams sin in bâ—th parts of humane nature thereby to shew the whole masse of pure man was corrupted not onely every individual of mankind but every essential part of man as well his form as his matter his soul as his body from which Christ was free being God as well as Man and this punishment may not be unproperly called concupiscence which is indeed the fewel to the fire of all sort of sins burning perpetually in mankind and being by concupiscence perpetually fed so that concupiscence leades not onely to corporal but even to spiritual vices and therefore as well these as others are called works of the flesh and are here numbred by the Apostle among them namely Idolatry which is serving false Gods Witchcraft which is working by help of the devil Enmity which is a permanent and professed breach of friendship Contention which is perverse opposing one another in words or opinions out of a spirit of contradiction Emulation which is a repining at others well doing Anger which is a height of passion seeking revenge and this is mortal or venial according as it is greater or lesser Brawles which is breach of brotherly charity by giving provoking language Dissention which leades to strife or war Sects which are all Heretical opinions or choyce of religions by the conduct of private sense or spirit contrary to the known and common doctrine of holy Church 21. The three first vices mentioned here speak themselves plain enough in their names Commessations are all riots or gluttonous excesses in eating or drinking feasts or banquets hereunto are reduced all excesses of wantonnesse at such feasts as idle songs and light womens company or unchaste talk The close of this verse prohibiting from heaven these who do those works of the flesh above enumerated is to be understood onely when mortal habit is contracted in all or any of these works or when any dies in a mortal act of any of these vices 22. See how contrary the works of the Spirit are to those of the flesh and note that the Apostle speaks not here in the same stile as formerly for he calls corporal deeds works of the flesh but spiritual acts he calls the fruits of the Spirit and why because they are more indeed the fruits of the holy Ghost then of man and therefore are called fruits rather then works though they are the works or acts of our soul yet in regard they are done by the vertue of grace not of nature hence they are imputed to be rather fruits of the holy Ghost then acts of our soul whilest that holy Spirit operates more towards them then our own soules do which since Adams fall are still more propense to evil then to good works Note here are principally understood the acts not the habits of those vertues for an act is properly a fruit of the agent and the chief agent in these being the holy Ghost they though produced by us are called the fruits of the Spirit that is of the Holy Ghost in us And the first of these is called Charity as the prime and principal fruit of the Holy Ghost in us because it is indeed the highest of all other virtues insomuch that it partakes in a manner of the Deity it self since God is called Charity 1 Joh. 4 8. and therefore this is indeed the main and special fruit of the Spirit and all other virtues are not improperly called the fruits of this because it is this gives life to the soul and to all her virtues whatsoever And by this are produced in us these following namely Joy the fruit indeed of a serene conscience guilty of no adulterate affection to creatures but ravisht wholly with the pure love of God Peace the tranquillity of mind upon the serenity of a conscience not troubled with any
Parents will to have him lost If then beloved we see the piety of the B. Virgin Mother of God was short of that which must be our guide how can we hope with lesse than heavenly piety to render our actions our desires gratefull to his divine Majesty And who can now complain there wants connexion in this Prayer unto the other service of the day if any doe let him see how to comply with the heavenly piety of his Eternall Father Jesus was Thirty years together subject to his Temporall Mother and then we shall soon find out a way how to sweeten the sour of our humane actions by having no desire to any of them less than heavenly nor to doe them with less than heavenly piety The Epistle ROM 12. ver 1. c. 1. I Beseech you therefore Brethren by the mercy of God that you exhibite your bodies a living host holy pleasing God your reasonable service 2. And be not conformed to this world but he reformed in the newnesse of your mind that you may prove what the good and acceptable and perfect will of God is 3. For I say by the grace that is given me to all that are among you not to be more wise than behooveth to be wise but to be wise unto sobriety to every one as God hath divided the measure of Faith 4. For as in one body we have many members but all the members have not one action 5. So we being many are one body in Christ and each one anothers members The Explication 1. THe Apostle had in his former Chapter told them much of the mercies of Almighty God and shewed them how though the wicked were justly condemned yet even the Blessed were most mercifully saved hence by that mercy so much inculcated immediately before he now conjures them that as they had now received from him the rule of Faith so they would frame their manners their actions and lives according to that rule see what is said of this Rule in the next Sundayes Epistle Rom. 12. v. 6. But to the present Text wherein the Apostle here beseecheth them by the mercy so much above recommended to live good lives answerable to their rule of Faith and to exhibite their bodies by action as well as their souls by Faith a living host to God There are many who loose the literall sense of this place by contenting themselves with the divers and those excellent mysticall meanings thereof as first by saying our bodies are living when our lives are vertuous Secondly when we are charitable because charity is the life of all vertues Thirdly when we have received the Sacrament of Christ his Body and Bloud but in very deed the literall allusion here is to the antient bloudy Sacrifices both of Jews and Gentiles made of beasts dead bodies whereunto the daily unbloudy Sacrifice of the Evangelicall Lamb is diametrically opposite first of the living Body and bloud of Christ next of living chastized but not mortified bodies of Christians being as the Apostle adviseth offered up to the service of Almighty God since such chastizements leave the bodies living by a naturall life again they live by the spirituall life of good works done in obedience to their soules command for so operating besides by corporall mortification or pennance the body is made truly a living host because it is mortified alive by becoming subject to the command of the Spirit for all mortification is a kind of living death whilest it makes the body dye to concupiscence and live to grace but these our bodies must further be holy Sacrifices that is to say imployed in holy not prophane or impure works not worshipping Idols as the Gentiles did but God as befits good Christians not polluting their bodies with unchast actions but keeping them pure and undefiled for this purity is by the Apostle 1 Cor. 7 called sanctity and is such indeed Again this bodily host must be pleasing to God for it may be living and holy in it self and yet not pleasing to God if the offerer be displeasing since many there are who fast goe in pilgrimage to holy places doe other corporall pennances and yet not rectifying together their souls obliquities their passions of the mind are nothing pleasing to God Lastly he concludes exhorting that our offerings to God be seasoned with the salt of wisedome that is be alwayes a reasonable service not fond childish curious indiscreet or singular but such as we may ever render a reasonable account of even to God who will not allow of indiscretions for reasons though indeed the Apostle here alludes to the irrationall offerings among the Gentiles who made their Idols their Gods and dedicated their services to Stocks and Stones whereas he would have Christians be more reasonable and instead of dead beasts to offer their living bodies joyntly with the acts of their believing hoping and loving souls to be a perpetuall Sacrifice or service to God all their life time and thus the whole creature will become not a corporall not an irrationall but a spirituall and reasonable Sacrifice 2. The Apostle hath pleased to make a disjunctive recommends of this entire creature in way of Sacrifice to God while in the former verse he insisted cheifly on the corporall part of the creature which we are and so advised how to render our bodies a living Sacrifice to God but in this verse he tells us how to render our better part the soul of man an acceptable oblation to the divine Majesty and since Christian perfection consists as well in declining evill as in doing good therefore this verse begins with removing evill out of our way that so we may doe good which the Apostle understands when he bids us take heed we doe not conforme our actions to the course of this unconformable world and this we shall performe by avoiding the evill that we see in men for we shall then best shew that we doe not conforme unto sinfull men when we fly their company and avoid such actions as renders them sinners and having thus followed the negative part of this counsell we are the better prepared to put the positive part thereof in execution for by not conforming to the world we whose bodies are made up of the old worldly metall shall be reformed in the newnesse of our minds by setting them henceforward on heavenly which heretofore were imployed wholly upon earthly cogitations so the Apostle by bidding us not conform to this world did not mean to forbid us making use of it but not to figure our selves like unto it that is not to become vain proud idle and the like as the world is for so we make our selves figures of this world or variable as worldlings are whereas the Apostle desires us to avoid becoming mutable or transitory figures and wisheth us to become persisting formes rather which are of a permanent nature namely spirituall formes of Saints not worldly figures of men and here reformation imports in truth
these are in number many in regard of the blessed that are saved but in the other opinion making both first and last saved soules it is hard to solve how all that are called are not also chosen since every saved soule is elected to salvation But Malâ—onat solves it thus saying out of the precedent particular assertion that the first shall be last and the last first he now makes a generall conclusion affirming many are called but not many chosen as in such a kind of way he spake in the precedent Chapter ver 23. how hard it was for all rich men to be saved because once a wealthy young man refused the counsell of holy poverty given unto him others say by many called are included all because all are many though few onely are saved others will have it that all are called to observance of the Commandements but not all to the observance of evangelical Counsels or all to grace but few to glory The Application HOw ever S. Paul in his Epistle to day seems to set us all a running over the Race of this life each upon his uttermost speed for the gaining of his own soul onely yet S. Matthew in this Gospel gives us hope we may gaine heaven for others as well as for our selves while he sets us all on work in the Vineyard of our Lord where the fruits of our labours are common though our reward be but particular 2. Hence it is this days Gospel points directly at the Pastors of Gods Church and at the missionary Priests set on work in the Vineyard of Christ for gaining soules by converting of the whole world yet indirectly it alludes to every soules particular indeavours in cultivating of their own special land in hope of gaining heaven by the sweat of their browes 3. So still we see toyle and labour is to be the life of man upon earth who forfeited all his temporall rest by Adams sinne and though our Saviour purchas 't againe an eternall rest for us in the next world yet that future rest must be gained â—y a perpetuall present labour here most justly inflicted one us for the punishment of sinne Hence we fitly pray to day as above On SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY The Antiphon LUKE 8. ver 10. TO you it is given to know the mysterie of the Kingdome of God but to others in parables said Jesus to his disciples Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God who seest we confide not in any of our own Actions grant us propitiously that against all adversities we may be armed by the protection of the Doctor of the Gentiles The Illustration I Have known hundreds even Priests themselves much admire at this prayer wherein Saint Paul with his best attribute is so unexpectedly brought in when not the least mention of any feast to him sacred is made by holy Church either in the office or service of the day and though I might in so hard a condition as I am now plunged into for making my designe good to day pretend it were sufficient for all the whole Church to be commanded to pray as now the mother Church of Rome doth this day unto Saint Paul whose Station is now kept in that holy City with great concourse of people thereunto yet this were to runne my selfe upon the rock of why not other Saints to be brought as unexpectedly into the prayers of the Church by this account as well as two onely are in all the year Saint Paul to day Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian upon Midlent-Thursday though we shall find every day in the year made sacred to some Saint or other by the frequentation of their stations in the City of Rome besides if this might satisfie others it must not be satisfaction to me because it comes not home to my designe of adjusting the Prayer to the Epistle and Gospel of the day unlesse we can find it as suitable to the latter as it is indeed to the former relating from first to last the whole story in a manner of Saint Pauls life though truely in the Gospel there is not one syllable of him wherefore if meditation had not helped us out this concordant designe had been very discordantly broken off but upon a day or two spent in prayer to find out some report between these parts of holy Churches services and upon remembring it was but last Sunday we were taught our life was a mere labour here upon earth and that we were all hired as labourers to work in the Vineyard of Christ me thought it was not strange this next Gospell should bring us in labouring indeed and like so many husband men sowing with corne the Vineyard we had lately ploughed up nor was it then so strange to heare us call upon the chiefe labourer now in eternall rest Saint Paul to help us with his intercession that our labours might be if not as great or as profitable at least as incessant as his were who by the common suffrages of all the Church will easily be granted to have been the chiefe Seeds-man thereof though Saint Peter were the chiefe pastor or governour and if so then it will be a most proper prayer on that day when the Gospell runns all upon sowing seed in severall grounds as to day it doth that the principall Seeds-man be called upon to help us the chiefe Preacher he that is stiled the Doctor of Gentiles or Nations for his eminence in preaching that is to say in sowing the word of God in the hearts of men and that this word is the seed to day made mention off we have our Saviours own authority to avouch it so we cannot be said to have strained this sense out of the prayer to day because it is as genuine to it as the Word of God in the parable is to the seed our Saviour doth compare it unto and look how many waies Expositors make Analogies between the Word and Seed so many waies at least shall we find this a proper prayer both to the Epistle and Gospel of the day and we may hope for the same answer from heaven whilest we complaining like S. Paul do look up thither and say we cannot confide in any of our own actions and therefore begge Almighty God will propitiously grant us in all our adversities that we may be armed with the protection of the Doctor of the Gentiles that is to say not onely by his prayer for our perseverance who were with Adam last Sunday sent to gaine our bread with the sweat of our browes but further by his protection namely by the same protection which was S. Pauls in all his temptations and difficulties the grace of God for this is that answer which was given to him in the height of his complaints Saul Saul My Grace sufficeth thee and truly the same Grace is more than an abundant protection for all the world nor can any man in the whole vniverse ask this protection with more
common practise of the devill when he cannot tempt to open sin to flatter by pretence of sanctity and so to draw us into the trap of selfe-conceit and dangerous vaine glory thus he in vaine attempted Jesus Christ thus he deludes the soules that he tempts to sin by telling them they are Predestinated to be sav'd and cannot finally be damn'd do what they will the least humility is remedy to this vaine glorious disease Thou shalt not tempt thy Lord thy God our Saviours way to kill that devill of vaine glory Saint Paul hath such another Hee that thinks he stands let him beware he fall not Religious feare and trembling is the firmest footing to hold us fast upon the highest Pinnacles of Grace 3. The latter end of all Temptation shewes the Temptors aime the ruine of the tempted soule This is designed under faire pretexts such as doe tickle natures appetite Riches pleasure honour and command but see the choaking Hooke arm'd with alluring baites behold Idolatry coucht under Gratitude It seemes a reasonable homage to adore the giver of so great a gift as all the wealth and pleasure of the world but 't is a huge injustice to receive them from the hands of an usurper who hath as little power to give as we to take the stolen gift And mark how this usurper then pretends to give when the right Owner takes away by a command of Abstinence Christ came not here to raigne but to bestow on us a Crown of glory to rob us then of heaven the devill proffers us the scum thereof the rubbige swept away from thence and cast into the common shoare the sinke of nature Earth O how sordid earth appeares when I behold the beauty of the heavens thus holy David thus we ought to say and more with Jesus bid the fiend avant so shall we by religious adoration of Almighty God accompany'd with holy Poverty this time of Lent forbear to covet riches and by them to Idolize unto the devill adde then these good workes to the Fast they will accomplish So shall we render our selves the Purified soules we pray to be by fasting On the second Sunday in Lent The Antiphon 2 Cor. 17. v. 9 c. THe vision which thou hast seene thou shalt tell to none untill the Sonne of man doe rise from death Vers To Angels God hath c. Resp That in all thy wayes c. The Prayer O God who doest behold us voyd of all strength guard us we beseech thee exteriorly and interiorly that we may be defended from all corporall adversities and purified from evill cogitations of our soules The Illustration THe last Sundayes Prayer laid our Lenten Fast for the chiefe ground of all the Prayers in Lent This fixed on that ground lookes to the end of the aforesaid Fast our purification of the whole creature which we are and so confessing here first that we are void of all strength to guard our selves we begge of Almighty God a guard both for the exterior and interior man that thus our bodies being outwardly defended from all corporall adversities particularly sicknesse to tempt us from our Fast our soules may be purified from all inward evills of filthy cogitations and this with regard to what Saint Leo told us last Sunday was required for the integrity of a Fast namely to withdraw our minds from sinne lest in vaine we did else take meat from our mouths and hence we shall finde little excuse by what casuists tell us the end of the precept is no precept to us though the meanes to that end be of absolute command for example in this present case they say t is no breach of our Lenten Fast to commit a sinne in Lent though we are commanded to use the meanes of fasting to the end we may avoid sinne and so render our selves the purified creatures which holy Church intends by this forty dayes Fast to make us for truly casuists in this may seeme to favour us but yet upon reflection it is no favour because sinne being at all times prohibited under strict command we never sinne mortally but we breake some precept of Almighty God greater then this of the Church by any other kind of mortall sinning which at all times is forbid us and then much more strictly when we are actually under a wholesome cure for sinne the holy Fast of Lent so it will not be to render soules scrupulous but religious to tell them that sinnes are aggravated at least when committed at that time we are commanded to take Physick for preventing sinne as now when holy Church injoynes a Fast expressely for that purpose But to our maine designe let us see how this dayes Prayer suits to the Epistle and Gospell of the day as well as to the season of Lent why truly very well to the former because this Lenten Fasting is one of the Apostolicall precepts mentioned here by Saint Paul to the Thessalonians and in regard Fasting is one of the best of remedies against that carnall sinne which this dayes Epistle dehorteth from as also it is the best step to that walk recommended to us from vertue to vertue that we may by abounding more and more therein please God by the fulfilling of his holy will which is as Saint Paul to day calls it our Sanctification and that particularly by the gift of chastity of purity both in body and soule which altogether comes home even to the letter and full sense of this dayes Prayer nor is the Gospell of the Transfiguration read to day for any other end then to mind us of being spiritually transfigured from Polluted to Chaste bodies from Sinful to Sainted Soules for so shall we appeare to our Saviours eye with faces shining like the Sunne and bodies pure as the whitest Snow as himselfe appeared on Mount-Tabor to his Apostles and as the expositors conceive Moses and Elias did appear so too thus to shew we cannot by our vertuous lives approach neer to God without being Transfigured to the world and made mirrours of admiration to men and Angels and such indeed ought to be our Lenten Fasters How exactly then is this dayes Prayer set to the other service of the day when by saying it in order to performe our Lenten Fasts it brings forth in us the effect of Sanctification which the Epistle aimes at and that of our Transfiguration from Sinners to Saints which the Gospell points unto The Epistle 1 ad Thes c. 4. v. 1 c. 1. For the rest therefore Brethren we desire and beseech you in our Lord Iesus that as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God as also you do walk that you abound more 2. For you know what precepts I have given to you by our Lord Iesus 3. For this is the will of God your Sanctification that you abstaine from Fornication 4. That every one may know to possesse his vessell in Sanctification and honour 5. Not in the Passion of lust
was to terrifie the people the sweet Law of grace was to be their guide he alone their comfort so that to him they were to stand firme in all distresses of him to receive all reliefes and by him to be brought finally to the eternity of that heavenly glory which here the Apostles had but a transient glimmering of thereby to shew this is not a time or place for comforts but rather for afflictions and that lest we should be dejected by being alwayes in affliction we may hope for the intervening comfort now and then of mysticall Transfigurations by which we shall for a short time take content in the service of God but they passing away againe are to leave us unto the trials of new afflictions till by frequent conformities of our wills to the pleasure of Almighty God we be rewarded with eternall glory for our patient enduring the many Eclypses we found here of heavenly comforts in our Soules by the interposition of earthly tribulations 9. By bidding them tell this vision to no body he forbids their speaking of it not onely to the people but even to the rest of the Apostles lest it might trouble them not to have been present at it and by his resurrection all men would be easily made beleeve he was God who if they had been told it before would have doubted thereof especially when they see him dead and buried so to speak of this Testimony of his Deity before his resurrection were labour lost but by this injoyning silence of his glory and propalation of his death and passion Christ gave us an admirable example to conceale our own praises and to be content with publication of pressures and infirmities since none can have any infamy so great to him as was the ignominy of the Crosse to Christ wherein we see he gloryed whilest he suppressed the fame of his glory till he had suffered the ignominy of his most opprobrious death hence Saint Paul forbids himselfe all other glory then in that of the Crosse of Christ a good lesson for all good Christians to learne and practice to be perfect in The Application 1. SInce there is a day made specially sacred to the Mystery of the Transfiguration the sixth of August when that Feast is celebrated we cannot expect to have this mystery looked on to day so directly as that the Prayer should litterally relate to it suffice it then to find it mystically proper to the Prayer 2. And thus it will be proper enough since we are taught the Transfiguration was at least a transient vision beatificall such as Saint Peter held to be a kinde of Heaven where he was content to build a Tabernacle of aboad and look how unable we are to be chaste so are we in our selves void of all strength to goe to Heaven and have need of a world of guards both interior and exterior to preserve us from the corporall adversities or sins that keep us thence or from the spirituall sins of evill thoughts that shut up Heaven Gates against us 3. To conclude since nothing makes our way securer into Heaven then to carry a Pure Soule in a Chaste body we being taught the cleane of heart are therefore blessed because they shall see God for this cause the Gospel of the transfiguration was very fitly joyned to the Epistle of chastity because the Chaste Body is that Transient Heaven upon Earth which is most delightfull to a pure Soule And as Chastity Transfigures us into a similitude of God whom we shall then live like unto when we see him and therefore like unto him because we see him that we may by the vertue of chastity joyned to our holy Fast be Transfigured into a similitude of his Divine Majesty We pray with holy Church as above On the third Sunday in Lent The Antiphon Luke 11. v. 27. A Certaine woman of the multitude lifting up her voyce said blessed is the wombe that bare thee and the Paps that gave thee Suck But Iesus saith to her yea rather blessed are they that heare the word of God and keep it Vers To his Angells c. Resp That in all c. The Prayer WE beseech thee Almighty God looke downe on the desires of thy humble people and extend the right hand of thy Majesty in our defence The Illustration IF any be to seek here what is meant by the desires we beseech God to looke downe upon of his humble people 't is but casting back an eye to what was declared in the first Sundays Prayer of Lent to be the end of this holy fast and finding it thereto be our purification we shal soon conclude that selfe same end is still and ought ever to be our desires all the Lent long because the continuation of the Fasting Medium argues our constant desire of arriving at the end to which it drives our being Purified by that meanes So thus we see the Torrent of our holy Fast runs never the lesse slowly on because it makes not a noyse in our eares rather it growes the deeper by how much lesse we heare thereof for shallow waters are those that tell us of the stones they fall upon but deep ones silently goe by nor is the stile of humble people any common place but hugely proper to this time of Lent which drawes the whole Christian world upon their knees and not content to have them low as earth while they Fasting watch and pray did in a manner bury them below the earth when on Ashwednesday they were all Sprinkled o're with holy Ashes as if they were not worthy longer to be the upper earth that had so proudly rebelled against Almighty God but must lye lower now and hope by falling downe to rise againe and truly if we reflect upon the words of this Prayer they are exact termes of a most humble Soule who dares not say she hath a will to fast on still and to be purified but onely tels Almighty God 't is her desire and hopes this humble expression will make it be his holy will she shall obtaine her desires because his onely looking on it as she humbly prayes to day he will is able to effect it But lest we forget to shew the Prayer suits as well to the Epistle and Gospell as to the time of Lent we must remember no termes could more directly exhaust them both then what this Prayer is couched in For how can we be followers else of Almighty God as Saint Paul exhorts us to be with the Ephesians unlesse we shew our selves to have learned the lesson of the Son of God without book Learne of me that am meeke and humble of heart which lesson this dayes Prayer repeats when holy Church cals us the humble people of Almighty God and meeknesse ever goes with humility hand in hand so having set our first step right into the track of this Epistle we need not fear the missing of our way for true humility hath root in love and will not stumble
Tables of the Law and the Cherubins of Glory above this overshadowing the propitiatory and the Apostle told them this way of Sacrificing should last till the time of correction that is untill the first comming of Christ into this world who should correct this manner of proceeding and take away those legall rites and ceremonies by putting in their place a spiritual Sacrifice and worshipping of God not that it is to be understood the old being corrected should stand but be abrogated by command of Christ as we say ill manners are corrected in youth not by remaining in the young man but by being taken away by good behavior and by vertue correcting his former vices so the Apostle having told the Hebrewes thus much of the old way of Sacrificing begins in this verse to shew how Christ assisting taking upon him the office of High Priest of the new law and of the good things to come thereby distinguished the fruits of his Sacrifice from those of the High Priest in the old Law who by assisting officiating at the Tabernacle obtained onely present and temporall benefits but Christ was an High Priest obtaining the good things to come Spirituall and Heavenly things as here remission of sins graces and vertues and in the next world glory blisse and everlasting life and this by entering to keep the Analogy between the old way of officiating and the new first a more ample and perfect Tabernacle that is as some say by his Divinity entering our humanity as others by his entering his Virgin Mothers wombe but the most genuine sence is by his entering into his Church Militant becoming the first member of it as it was framed in the Idaea of his Heavenly Father For so it was not a work of humane hands of flesh and blood or of this creation of creatures making but was indeed the Tabernacle of God the first Sanctum Holy through which he was to passe by the vale of the Crosse into the second Tabernacle Sancta Sanctorum the holy of Holies his Church triumphant the Kingdome of Heaven nor was it necessary for Christ to prepare his way from his outward Tabernacle his Church Militant to his inward his Church triumphant by the bloud of Goates for his own sins since he had none and the blood of a Calfe for the sins of the people as in the old Law the High Priests did once a yeare that by Sprinkling the Sancta Sanctorum with this blood they might render God more propitious to themselves and the people no he shed once for all mankinde his own most sacred bloud and dying on the Crosse he entered the holy of holies the kingdome of heaven whereby he found for us eternal redemption so copious an one indeed as needed not be repeated by his dying any more for us then once though in the old Law the bloody Sacrifice of the High Priests were annuall because the power of that bloud they shed was weak and could not plead for long mercy whereas Christs blood prevaileth for eternall and that by being shed but once 13. It was the ceremony of the old Law Num. 19. first to shed the blood of Goats Oxen and Heifers and then burning the Beasts to keep the ashes and putting them into living so they called fountaine water and Sprinkling the people with them to declare they should by that aspersion after Sun-set not before be reputed sanctifyed corporally cleane and be admitted into the company of the faithfull as formerly which was a figure of the blood of Christ issuing out of his earthly body to be a reall purgation of sin out of our Souls and not onely of our corporal impurity it was also the ground whence holy Church useth aspersion with holy water wherin is mixed Salt insteed of those burnt-ashes Note it is well said here this ceremony was but to the cleansing of the flâ—sh for it only did declare their bodies who were thus sprinkled should be esteemed cleane and pure though before polluted by the touch of a dead carcasse a leper or otherwise and this cleansing was then called sanctifying as in this text it is 14. It is indeed great reason the blood of Christ who was God as well as man inspired by the instinct of his own Deity and by the speciall instigation of the Holy Ghost to offer up his life as an unspotted Sacrifice to God the Father for our sins should have much more force to purge our Soules from sins that is from dead works then the blood of beasts had to cleanse mens bodies and Sin is not unfitly called a dead work because it not onely defileth our Soule worse then the touch of a dead carcasse did their bodies of the old Law but even kils them too and yet by the blood of Christ they are both purged and revived so as to be able to waite upon the living God before whom no dead Soul that is to say no Soule in deadly Sin can give any attendance at all it being unfit that the Fountaine of life should be attended on by the ougly countenance of death 15. He is therefore truly the Mediator because he did partake of the nature of both extreames that is of God offended and of man offending and so death being a mean which is to say man dying in Christ God was satisfied not onely for the Sins of those who live under the Law of grace but as is specially noted here in this verse for the Sins of those under the former Law of Moses which was the former Testament here specified and of those also under the Law of nature quoniam copiosa erat apud eum redemptio because redemption with him is plentifull and since he took humane nature it was not out of the Spheare of his activity to satisfie for all mankind to whom that nature is common by those called are understood here the elected for those onely are effectually called to the participation of the promise of eternal inheritance of being eternally heirs of God and coheires of Christ and this inheritance is called a promise because it was the pact of God the Father with his Sacred Son that if he would once dye to satisfie divine justice for mans Sins those whom he should call that is effectually single out or elect for eternall salvation should receive the same by vertue of promise from God the Father to his Sacred Sonne whence their salvation is called the promise of eternal inheritance and in this regard Saint Paul speaking of himselfe as of one thus effectually called or elected said that he having done what was required of him had reposed for him in heaven a Crown of Justice not as due to his work but as due to the promises God the Father in Pauls behalfe made to his Sacred Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the like promise we account is made in the behalfe of all those whom Christ hath elected to his eternal inheritance not that it is a thing man can
so now they think they have reason and do well in so reproaching of him because first they had observed he did frequently converse with Samaritanes next that he was bred up in Nazareth a City in Galilee neer to Samaria whence the Jews of that place were esteemed to be much like the Samaritanes Lastly and most literally that the Religion of the Samaritanes was mixed partly with Judaism partly with Gentilism since they did worship the god of the Assyrians from whom they were descended as well as keep the Rights of the Synagogue and for this cause the Jews held them Schismaticks and so detested their Sacrifices that to call Christ a Samaritane was to shew they did detest him too which appeared by their adding he was also possâ—ssed by some Devil and spake as mad men do that are in diabolical frenzies But the truth is they did really believe he was some Devil himself because he laid claim to be the Messias and to be the Son of God which they looked upon him for as if he had been Lucifer himself and Christ understood their meaning to be thus when in the next Verse he tells them 49. He neither is nor hath in him any Devil because in telling them he is the Son of God he doth not boast his own descent so much as that he gives the honour and glory of all he doth unto his heavenly Father and for this Act of his they seek to disgrace and to dishonour indeed to revile him O unparalleld meekness and deep reply in one word to both their calumnies for though he mention not Samaritane in this Reply yet by saying he hath no Devil in him he includes the other since the Schism of the Samaritanes made them slaves of the Devil wherefore he replies onely to the Slander cast upon his Father by calling him Devil to shew he regards not much the abuse they committed against himself as he was man but as he was the Son of God whence he must needs vindicate his Fathers if not his own cause 50. How well might he say this who had professed he came hither by command of his Father that he preached his Fathers not his own Doctrine and the like I do therefore said he not seek my own but my Fathers honour and glory it sufficeth me that I know when the hour of his holy Pleasure is come he will clarifie glorifie me as afterwards he did when Christ said unto him before his Transfiguration the hour is come clarifie thy Son Joh. cap. 17. v. 1. and as then he did honour him by manifesting his glory and avouching him to be his Son so the other part of this Verse will be verified when he shall judge as God and punish those that revile his said Son not that in this place Christ reflected on the general Iudgement which is referred to himself but unto the private Judgement that God makes either by punishing temporally the sins of the people as he did in the destruction of the Jews by Titus and the Romans for having crucified Christ or eternally if he reserve their punishment till the hour of their death for Christ is not properly said to come as Iudge to every Soul dying but to all Souls at the latter day So our private Iudgements are the Sentences of God rather then of Christ upon us yet not to the exclusion of Christ neither 51. Whereupon turning to his own veracity rather then regarding their falsehood he says Amen Amen Truly Truly or since I am God and cannot lye be mens opinions what they will yet really and truly be it so that whosoever shall hear and keep my Word shall never dye eternally for so he would taste eternal death but though he dye temporally through the separation of his Body from his Soul yet he shall not dy eternally that is he shall not sin mortally which can onely cause eternal death and even that death of the body I shall take away too when at the general Resurrection I shall give both corporal and spiritual life everlasting to those Blessed who have inviolably kept and observed my word by living as I have given Law unto them 52 53. By this Reply we may see they understood not the true Sence of Christs meaning when they think to obtrude the lye and the Devil upon him by shewing he hath asserted a manifest lye in saying who believe in him should never dye for say they though thou were God yet would it not follow to hear thy word and keep it were enough to render one immortal since Abraham and the Prophets did hear and keep Gods Word and yet are dead whereas he never meant they should not dye temporally but that they should not dye eternally or which is all one dye in deadly sin nor can indeed the other Sence be rationally inferred out of the Letter of the Text which alludes onely to eternal death No marvel they should wonder at his pretending to be greater then Abraham whom they were content to make Head of the Synagogue by reason he was the First Believer for this proceeded not onely out of their affected but indeed out of their reall ignorance that Christ was God as well as Man and so they held it absurd he should pretend to an immunity not granted to the best of them as then they to argue against him were content to admit Abraham to be he being indeed the Father of all Beliefe the first Believer of all the Synagogue for they went not to Adam nor to the Faithful under the Law of Nature though indeed Moses was the first Member of the Synagogue framed into a Body for Abrahams Beliefe was Personal onely Moses his was Legal 54. The beginning of this Verse is his Answer to the close of the last as who should say he did not make nor boast himself to be much though he might with modesty and truth enough have done it so he doth not desire any other or more glory then what his Father gives him and says if he desire more it proves null alluding to the Judgements of Courts that never take the Testimony of any Party in his own Cause and so now that he is in contrast with them he pretends not to his own Testimony of himself but remits all to his Father whom they did confess to be their God and consequently beyond all exception to be believed 55. Observe he tells them they do not know his Father though they confess him to be their God when they heard him speak and profess Christ was onely his beloved Son and bid them hear that is believe him for then they did not or would not take notice this voyce came from heaven from God the Father as it did indeed But the literal sence of this place is that though they knew there was but one God and did believe in him yet they did not know that God who was one in Essence was Trine in Persons and consequently did beget the word his eternal
Son and that from these Two loving each other did proceed the Holy Ghost the third Person of the Blessed Trinity in this Sence he said they did not know him and in this Sence he professeth he did know him and that if he should say otherwise he should be a lyer as they were lyers who had called him Devil and Samaritane yet particularly that they did not thus know him to be as well Father of Christ Jesus as to be one onely true God But says Christ I know him thus and more then this I keâ—p his Word that is in the best literal Sence I am his Word though this place may bear the other Glosses too that Christ as Man obeyed the Precepts of his Father and that as the Jews did shew they were not of God because they did not give ear to his Word meaning his Laws and Commandments therefore he said they were not of God but rather of the Devil whose suggestions they did adhere unto and follow 56. Abraham your Father from whom you glory to be descended in your Faith he himself was glad to see me nay did long desire it and when he had the happiness of my sight he leapt for joy and yet you that boast your selves to be his children are so degenerate as seeing me and perpetually conversing with me you rejoyce not but reject and revile me most blasphemously Many expound this Place diversly some will have the day of Christ which Abraham did long for and exulted to behold to be the time of the eternal generation of the Word of God others the day of his Living upon Earth others the instant of the Incarnation of God in his Mothers Womb others the Day of his Passion which wrought all mankindes Redemption and all these very well And they differ as much in expounding the Time when Abraham injoyed this desire by actually seeing this day some affirming that by Faith he see this day when he obeyed God in Sacrificing his Son which was a Figure of Christ his being to dye for our Sins others that he see it by Revelation as Prophets do things to come others that he knew it and see it when Simeon came to Limbus and told Abraham he had held Jesus in his hands as also when Zachary St. Anne the Blessed Virgins Mother and St. John Baptist told him they had seen him and likewise by the Angels of God telling him thereof as the like Angels do tell Souls in Purgatory what doth daily comfort them but the best way of all is that God for a reward of his Obedience gave him the happiness both by Revelation and Elevation of his Souls Faculties to see Christ Born as the Saints in Heaven Now see all we do if yet this may not be done as some conceive by the very natural Faculty of a Soul able of her self to know all things naturally as soon as she is out of the body or as St. Stephen Act. cap. 7. v. 55. from Earth though clogged with his body did see Christ up as high as Heaven by the like Elevation nor doth this lessen the Joy Abraham had therein to see and know no more then an other separated Soul since his joy was answerable to his expectation longer then that of any other and if we say more earnest perhaps we shall not do others wrong because as the promise of all our happiness was made to Abraham in his Seed so questionless his share of joy was greater because he had thereby the fulfilling of the promise made to him above two thousand years before and although all who receive a benefit equally divided are equally happy yet if among these any one had the happiness to be able to say this benefit was derived to them by vertue of a promise made to him in all their behalfs sure he hath somwhat more of Joy even in his equal share admit he had no more then others have This then was Abrahams Case though if this were not the Text doth not deny all the rest that see the day of Christ with Abraham did exult thereat with him but here it was enough to the purpose that Christ told them how careless soever they were of the honour yet their Father Abraham rejoyced at it 57. It is not hence to be inferred that Christ did live as some have pretended almost fifty years for the reason they said he was not yet fifty was to be sure they would not fall short of the years he had lest our Saviour might have intrapt them as they desired to do him so they named a time much beyond what he had lived and therefore he could not as they conceived possibly have seen Abraham whence they would inser he did lye and was not to be believed not reflecting nor indeed knowing he as God was elder then Abraham how much younger soever he were as man 58. And by this Answer of Christ it is evident he spake of knowing Abraham not as man for so he was Abrahams Junior but as God who as such created Abraham and all the world besides and therefore he doth not say of himself I was before Abraham but I am before him thereby to shew that in God there is no difference of the time no not any time at all but all that is in him is eternal and so cannot be said to have been or that it shall be but that it is whence we see God giving himself a name Exod. 3. says I am who I am so now Christ speaking of himself as God not as man says before Abraham was I am which was as high an expression of his Deity as he could use and for that cause the Jews not believing but even hating him run and 59. Took up stones to pelt him immediately to death as the highest blasphemer in their opinions that possibly could be For it was according to the Law Blasphemers should be stoned to death Levit. 24. v. 16. though indeed they were so doting on their Father Abraham that even for Christ to have preferred himself before him onely was enough for them to have stoned him to death if he had not declared also that he was God and the Creator of Abraham for so his words imported and so it was indeed by our Saviours hiding himself is here understood his hindering the Faculty or Power of their optick Nerves or withdrawing his concurse as God from their Faculty of seeing him though he left them power at the same time to see all things else besides himself as perfecttly as ever if yet we may not more rationally say this was done by hindering his body from reflecting any species to their eyes for this every glorified Body shall be able to do So it is not hence to be conceived Christ did hide himself by running into any corner or covert for thither their malice would have pursued him but that he did by his omnipotency work a miracle that they seeing should yet not see him who stood in the midst of them
the good works that help to Sanctifie the First weeks Fast of Lent Chastity of Body and Purity of Soul The Second The Love of Enemies Declining evil Talk and evil Company Hearing the Word of God keeping it in our Hearts and Speaking forth the Praises of our Lord The Third Alacrity of Soul joyn'd with Contrition Decency and Order in the Rights of Holy Church and the Fruit of Joy if not all the other twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost after Communion the Fourth Compassion and a perfect Resignation to our Saviours Passion Integrity and Innocency of Life The Passion Week Adde now to these this Holy Week to make the Fast Compleat Patience Humility and Obedience besides the Contempt of the World recommended in the following Gospel so shall we do as we are taught this holy Time of Lent and as we Pray we may to share in the Joyful Resurrection according as we Fasting thus condole with Jesus in his Sacred Passion 2. Let not the first Verse of this Epistle stagger us beloved seeming to require not onely these three Vertues from us for the accomplishing our Holy Fast but those in some degree of perfection answerable to the like Vertues in our Blessed Saviour so that it is his Invincible Patience his Profoundest Humility and his most Prompt Obedience we are to imitate His Patience St. Paul 2 Thes 3. presumes to bid us pray for saying Our Lord direct our Hearts in the Charity of God and in the Patience of Christ His Humility himself bids us imitate Matth. 11. v. 29. Learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart His Obedience we come neerest to at greatest ease in loving one another since he says Joh. 15. ver 12. This is my Precept That you love each other as I lov'd you and this obedience we bring neerest home to his when as he dy'd for us all in obedience to his heavenly Father we dye for one another in Testimony of our obedience to this his Precept as all Martyrs do or when we rather choose to dye to Nature by not sinning then to Grace by breaking our obedience to his least Commands 3. Thus shall we with a general view see what we ought to have been at this time of Lent and with a particular regard behold our present duty proper to this Holy Week that being dead to sin we may live to Grace that being buried with Christ we may rise with him to Glory since onely they deserve to share with him in the Joy of his Resurrection who by imitating of his Vertues are partakers with him in his bitter Death and Passion According as we pray above we may The Gospel Matth. 21. v. 1 c. 1 And when they drew nigh to Jerusalem and were come to Bethphage unto Mount Olivet then Jesus sent two disciples 2 Saying to them Go ye into the town that is against you and immediately you shall finde an Ass tyed and a Colt with her loose them and bring them to me 3 And if any man shall say ought unto you say ye that our Lord hath need of them and forthwith he will let them go 4 And this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet saying 5 Say ye to the daughter of Sion Behold thy King cometh to thee meek and sitting upon an Ass and a Colt the fole of her that is used to the yoke 6 And the Disciples going did as Jesus commanded them 7 And they brought the Ass and the Colt and laid their garments upon them and made him sit thereon 8 And a very great multitude spread their Garments in the way and others did cut boughes from the trees and strewed them in the way 9 And the multitudes that went before and that followed cryed saying Hosanna to the Son of David Blessed is he that cometh in the name of our Lord. Hosanna in the highest The Explication 1. NOte that St. Mark Mark 11. ver 2. and St. Luke Luke 19. ver 29. relating this Passage mention Bethania which yet is here omitted the reason they speak of it was for that Bethania Bethphage and Ierusalem are all three neer together and St. Iohn Cha. 12. v. 1. makes mention of our Saviours Supping the night before in Bethania so they name the place whence he came as well as those he passed by and went unto Jerusalem whereas St. Matth. mentions onely those places he passed by which were Bethphage and Mount Olivet before he came unto the valley of Josaphat which lay just in view of the City through which valley runs the river Cedron As for Bethphage it is so called as signifying the Mouth of the valley because it is placed just at the entrance into Iosaphat and is as it were the mouth thereof so it is called the House of the Mouth in the Hebrew Tongue because through a little narrow passage out of Bethphage close by the Mount Olivet they go into the valley of Iosaphat and then at a Golden gate in to the Temple which stands without the City of Jerusalem Hence Bethphage is thought to be the place where the Priests of the Temple living all provisions for Sacrifices were made ready Lambs Goats Oxen Pigeons Turtles and the like and therefore Christ was pleased to pass this way through the Golden gate into Jerusalem to shew he was the lamb of God who came to be sacrificed for the sins of the people and that it was his sacred Person whom the Paschal Lamb did prefigure As also for this cause he came from Bethania when he had a little before raised Lazarus from his grave and passed now triumphantly through the valley of Josaphat into the earthly Jerusalem to declare that in the same valley he was to come much more triumphantly as Judge over all the dead who should at the latter day be raised and carrying the Blessed onely with him into the heavenly City of Jerusalem would leave the wicked to eternal confusion as those who now conspired his death after this Triumph were to be left over to utter destruction both â—â—ey and their famous City what two Disciples were sent is not certain some say Philip and Peter some Peter and John it boots little who they were though the two latter are more likely because they were those for certain that went afterward to provide the Pascal Lamb which Christ did eat with his Disciples 2. Whether Christ spake these words between Bethania and Bethphage or after he came past Bethphage is uncertain if before then probably he meant by the Town against you Bethphage if after then he meant some little village by it for certainly all agree it was not meant of Jerusalem because in the Latine it is called a little Castle 3. In this verse is shewed both the Deity of God and his Dominion or power over all things the first that he could see things absent the second that he could command them to be presently brought unto him without any contradiction onely
For as the Act of separated souls is necessarily unalterable like those of Angels so the last Act they had when they were united to their bodies remains eternally and is not unproperly said to be the same Act continued for all eternity and therefore free for ever because at first freely produced when the soul was in state of a viatour and out of that issued into the better state of an impatriated spirit nay though Purgatory intervene yet that remora alters not the nature or freedome of the Act because soules there retain their love to God wherewith they dyed however they suffer for former infirmities of their life past The Application 1. WHat may be to our special and present use in this Gospel is to observe that Holy Church culls it out as the most proper to the now flowing Feast of Pentecost though spoken by our Saviour to his Disciples before his Passion as appears ver 29. above but with intention they should then make memory and use thereof when they had received the holy Ghost as consequently we must do at the celebrating this Festivity The main scope of this Gospel is exhorting us to believe and love and telling us the sign of true love is to keep the word of God and that the effect of this love will be to draw down into our soules the Holy Trinity Father Son and holy Ghost as delighting to live in the hearts of those who love the Son of God and shew their love by keeping his holy word 2. But here is a special stile observable in this Gospel very profitable to be reflected on which is that our Saviour seems here only to relate or speak as v. 25. 26. and to leave it to the Holy Ghost to suggest and teach the true meaning of what he said as if it were a speech too profound for his Disciples to dive into without the help of the holy Ghost If then our B. Lord the wisdome of his eternal Father and consequently the best spokes-man in the world would not what ere he could speak so plain to his Apostles themselves as to be understood by them before the coming of the holy Ghost to explicate his meaning how absurdly shall it be done in those that are ignorant Lay-men to dare to understand or interpret holy writ 3. Hence we must infer that we are bound in the first place to believe the holy Ghost to be coequal God with the Father and the Son who sent him since none but God can be of Gods counsel and tell men the meaning of Gods holy word Again we must infer that it is the love of God who now must teach â—s the meaning of Gods holy word and that they are our Wills our Hearts which now must be instructed more then our understandings for these the wisdome of God our Saviour taught by the sight of Faith those the love of God the holy Ghost now teacheth by the fire of charity so that however Faith Rectifies yet it is charity must saintifie the soul how ever Christ Redeemed us yet he was pleased to send the holy Ghost to save us by his sayntifying grace and alas what had it availed us once to have been by God the Father Created once to have been by God the Son Redeemed if we were not more then once by God the holy Ghost sayntified as oft indeed as by sin we are made uncapable of the benefits of our Creation or Redemption Come therefore Holy Ghost come teaching come inamouring come comforting come sayntifying come saving Spirit into the open hearts thou hast of Christians ready to receive thee ready to be inkindled with the flames of thy most holy Love And Praying to day as above most fitly to the sense of this Holy Text. On Trinity Sunday THis Sunday is both the Octave of Pentecost and also the First Sunday after it therefore this week we have the Epistles Gospels and Prayers of two Sundayes for our entertainment and these both if I mistake not the most delightfull of any in the whole year The Antiphon Matth. 28. v. 19. THee God the Father unbegotten thee onely begotten Son thee Holy Ghost Comforter thee holy and undivided Trinity with all our heart and mouth we Confesse we Praise thee we Blesse thee to thee be Glory world without end Vers Blessed art thou O Lord in the firmament of heaven Resp Both praise-worthy and glorious for ever The 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 Majesty to adore unity we beseech thee heartily that in the firmnesse of the same Faith we may ever be defended from all adversity The Illustration NOw the mysteries of our Redemption are compleat by the contribution of all the Three divine persons of the Blessed Trinity thereunto as of the Father sending his only Son to dye for us of the Son coming and actually dying for our sins and of the holy Ghost descending and sanctifying us with his holy grace to make us sin no more it is most necessary we should close up the said mysteries with a peculiar feast of the same Blessed Trinity and so put a glorious crown upon the work of our Redemption while we begin to work out our salvation from the first root thereof which is our Faith in the most Blessed and undivided Trinity a mystery so unheard of before Christ had taught it to the world that even to this day it is the hardest thing which can be told to men and the thing which the blessed Angels that behold it do not comprehend how the Divine Nature can be personally Trine which neverthelesse is essentially but One. In admiration whereof St. Paul in this dayes Epistle breaks out into a Triple Trinity of his expressing this Triunity saying O depth of the Riches of the wisdome and of the knowledge of God! Loe the first Who ever knew the sense of our Lord or who was ever of his Counsel or who gave first unto him and it shall be restored again Loe the second For of God by God and in God are all things Loe the last of his Triple expressions alluding all of them to the Blessed Trinity as by the Expositours of this Epistle we shall find and consequently must acknowledge it to be included in the Prayer above As also the Gospel is expressing how our B. Lord sent his mission of Apostles with commission to Baptize and teach all the world the mystery of this Blessed Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost So we have this day the best of harmonies in the mystical musick of this book while we find all three parts of holy Churches service to day so neatly woven into one the Epistle Gospel and Prayer all singing forth the praises of the most Blessed and undivided Trinity Father Son and holy Ghost three Divine Persons and one onely God Hitherto the mysteries of our Redemption were all upon
is indeed the highest article of our Faith the first and main principle of Christian Religion But to conclude this doctrine 20. See how the beginning of this verse tells besides this mystery what the Apostles were commanded to teach the world namely to do all whatsoever Christ commanded them to deliver as the Will of God that is to say as well to do good works as to believe aright and to professe that Faith which was preached unto them and how ever Luther and Calvin pretend the Church of Christ and the right administration of the Sacraments thereof and of the divine Services had failed for many hundred of years together before they arrogated to themselves a kind of new Apostolate forsooth yet it is from hence confidently asserted by the unanimous consent of all Catholick Doctours and Divines that there neither hath been hitherto nor ever shall be hereafter till the day of doom which is the consummation or end of the world any failure in the Church of Christ nor in Christ his perpetual assistance and presence with his ever visible Church insomuch that he is ever visibly present in his perpetual visible rulers of the Church and invisibly in his continual-assisting grace and hence it is evidently proved that albeit no successours of the Apostles had those ample prerogatives which they enjoyed yet their Ministery is so the same that the Apostles was as Christ is said even to perpetuate the Apostles in their successours and his presence with them in his presence with their followers and in his assisting them as constantly as he did assist their predecessours though perhaps not as amply nor as efficaciously at all times For how else can it be true that Christ said to his Apostles he would send them another Comforter that should assist them eternally not in their persons but in their successours to the worlds end For the same are the gifts of Christ and of the Holy Ghost as far forth as they are both one and the same God Nay more Christ is even visibly remaining with the Ministers of his Church in the holy Eucharist or B. Sacrament of the Altar his blessed body and bloud being exposed perpetually to the receiving and adoration of the people more he is visibly with us in his Priests who are his visible instruments to administer the Sacraments and offer sacrifice unto the sacred Deity for though the Priest be the instrumental yet Christ is the chief and principal Priest himself it being proper to him to be both Sacrifice and Sacrificant so as in seeing the accidents of bodies we are said consequently to see the things whose accidents we see in like manner by seeing the Sacramental species we may be said to see the Sacrament the body and bloud of Christ whose accidents they are after consecration though the same species before were the accidents of bread and wine To conclude we may as truly say Christ is visibly with his Church to the worlds end as we may say a mans soul is visibly in his body that is to say perceptibly so long as a man lives and hath motion for look what the soul is to the body the same Christ is to his Church so that as the soul is the bodies natural life Christ is the supernatural life of the soul believing in him and making her self by that belief a member of his Church for as the soul makes the body move so Christ makes his Church to do according to that of S. Paul Philipp 2. he worketh all in all according to the purpose of his own holy will and again he it is that gives a will to do good and a power to put that will in execution and to perfect by him what was undertaken for him as being to his honour and glory The Application 1. IT is no marvel that to day we hear inculcated to us an explicite act of Faith in the Front and body of this Gospel while Hope and Charity are onely recommended to us in the close thereof and that but implicitely neither notwithstanding as our design of piety is laid in this work Charity is the chief vertue to be practis'd from this day untill Advent This is I say no marvel the very name of the day requiring this preference to Faith and the nature of the Feast inforcing it besides for since the proper object of Love is Goodnesse seen or understood and since the Blessed Trinity is not here seen at all but by the light of Faith therefore all the understanding we can have of it on Earth is first to believe and next to love it according as the Gospel intimates where Jesus by the vertue of Plenipotentiality given him both in heaven and earth sends his Apostles first to Teach the whole world the mystery of the B. Trinity by Baptizing all Nations in the name of the Father Son and holy Ghost and thereby obliging them to believe explicitely these Three distinct Persons are all but one simple and single God whereas he bids the said Apostles here at least but implicitely to hope in and to love the sacred Trinity in as much as he commands their Teaching all Nations to observe all his Commandments whatsoever which yet are not observeable but for pure love of the commander and for pure hope of his recompencing our obedience unto his commands Who so reads the Gospel will soon see this to be the whole scope thereof 2. What then remaines for further application but that by an actual confessing this true Faith we actually glorifie the eternal Trinity and that in the Power of each Divine Persons sacred Majesty namely in the Power of the Father creating us in the Power of the Son redeeming us in the Power of the Holy Ghost sayntifying of us we adore the Unity of these Three Persons Deity since none but God can create none but God can redeem and none but God can sayntifie a soul 3. O Happy Christians who by firmly believing this to be their obligation to the sacred Trinity can neither want motive enough for Love of God nor ground enough for Hope that by this Act of Faith they shall be defended from all Adversity since the true victrix over all our enemies is as St. John tells us 1 Ep. c. 5. our Faith which overcomes the world and consequently all Adversity Say now the Prayer above and see how patt it is to what we here are taught On the first Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 6.37 JVdge not that you be not judged for in what Judgement you Judge you shall be Judged saith our Lord. Vers Let my prayer O Lord be directed Resp Even as Incense before thee The Prayer O God the strength of those that hope in thee be propitiously 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 will and work The Illustration ALbeit this Sunday is
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
given us in the Blessed Sacrament whereof this Gospel was but a figure according to the exposition of the best Expositours of Holy Writ For look how to day four thousand persons were corporally fed with multiplied loaves so are millions of soules dayly fed with the body of Christ multiplied under millions of consecrated hoasts and as by this food is chiefly nourished in us all that is good so by the practice of Piety as the prayer petitions in the close is maintained in us what by the aforesaid blessed Sacrament is nourished as who should say in vain we take this spirituall nutriment if after it we do not maintain the grace it gives us by the continuall study and practice of Piety wherefore to make this Prayer accomplished we beg in the close thereof that God will maintain in us by our practice of Piety the good nutriment we receive by the blessed Sacrament Thus wee see how admirably the Prayer is adapted to the other parts of this dayes service and withall we are taught that the perfection of a Christian life consists in the continuall practice of Piety and devotion The Epistle Rom. 6. v. 3. c. 3 Are you ignorant that all we which are baptized in Christ Jesus in his death we are baptized 4 For we are buried together with him by Baptisme into death that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father so we also may walk in newnesse of life 5 For if we become complanted to the similitude of his death we shall be also of his resurrection 6 Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sinne may be destroyed to the end that we may serve sin no longer 7 For he that is dead is justified from sin 8 And if we be dead with Christ we believe that we shall also live together with Christ 9 Knowing that Christ rising again from the dead now dieth no more death shall no more have dominion over him 10 For that he died to sin he died once but that he liveth he liveth to God 11 So think you also that you are dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Explication 3. TO be baptized in Christ is to be christned according as Christ hath commanded in the name of the Father Sonne and holy Ghost to be baptized in his death is as much as to say in representation of his death and that our Baptisme hath force and vertue from the merits of his death and passion and signifies that as Christ died on the Crosse to this naturall life so the baptized die to sinne and live to Christ which is a life opposite to that of a sinner 4. This verse adds more to the Analogie saying we are not onely dead to sinne in Baptisme but thereby also buried with him in proof of our death to sinne So that the Trine Immersion used in Baptisme alludes to the three dayes that Christ lay buried in his grave as our sinnes in Baptisme lie drowned under the water thereof And for this cause holy Church makes a solemn Baptisme yearly on Easter eve to shew that thereby those who died were buried with Christ do also rise with him by the glory of his heavenly Father that is to glorifie him to a new life in him in testimony whereof the baptized have a white garment cast over them called the Chrisome to shew the purity of their souls and are advised to carry the same inward purity with them to the tribunall of Christ as a proofe of their fidelity to their vow in holy Baptisme of renouncing the world the flesh and the devill so to conserve their puritie or newnesse of life to the which the Fathers exhort earnestly when they inculcate the frequent memory of our baptismall vow which they ground in these words so we also may walk importing so we may persevere in that purity 5. See how this verse insists further upon the consequence of our spirituall resurrection even in this life by our spirituall death and buriall as above shewing that our newnesse of life by Baptism is like the ingrafting us into the stock or tree of Christ whence we are to receive all our future sap or nutriment so that as his death to naturall life was the way to his resurrection in like manner our death to sinne is the way to our resurrection with him and as we see graftâ— following the changes of the tree they are ingrafted in seem in the winter to die with it in the spring to revive with it so do we by Baptisme in Christ seem to die with him in the winter of his passion but revive in the spring of his resurrection 6. Then we know indeed our old man to be crucified with Christ when the new man lives in him By the old Man understand custome of sinning renounced by Baptisme by the body of sinne understand here the whole masse of our sinnes by the destruction of it understand not the palliation of it onely by imputative Justice as heretikes do but the absolute death thereof by inherent justice infused by baptismall grace into our souls 7. And this sense is confirmed by the next verse saying he that is dead meaning to sinne is justified from sinne lives by the infused Justice which hath killed and not onely covered sinnes in the baptized 8. This verse imports our future life eternall which we firmly believe we shall injoy with Christ if here we die with him to sinne 9. The sense of the precedent verse is confirmed by this following that tells us death shall as little reign over us in the next life if we truely die to sinne in this as it did over Christ once risen from his grave and yet withall alludes to the constancie we ought to have in good works even in this life that having once had the happinesse to live spiritually here we should disdain to die again by relapse into sinne and so to let death dominear ever us whom once we had slain by grace Note here the strange goodnesse of our Saviour who being God was content to let death once dominear over him on the Crosse that we might for ever after triumph with him over death 10. Here Christ is not to be understood to die to sinne as we doe but to die for sinne not his own but ours and that once for all our sinnes Where he is said here to live to God understand with God a blessed and immortall life as also that by so living he may perpetually praise and glorifie Almightie God since as he died for sinnes abolition so he lives for Gods glorification 11. 'T is reason we should think our selves dead to sinne when by Baptisme we renounce it and living to God when by the same Baptisme we live in him But it is a high expression of the alteration which the Apostle exhorts unto in advising us to think we are dead to sinne for as dead men have no motion
to take away all hurtfull things and grant them all availing ones to their salvation but especially this most availing of all the rest to send them true Prophets good and holy Priests such as may teach them as well by the exemplarity of their lives as by the veritie and soliditie of their Doctrine for as the Text commands us to beware of others so the Prayer by consequence must beg for these On the eighth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Luk. 16. v. 3. WHat shall I doe for that my Lord taketh from me the Bailiff-ship To dig I am not able to beg I am ashamed I know what I will do that when I shall be removed from the Bailiff-ship they may receive me into their houses Vers Let my Prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer GRant us O Lord we beseech thee propitiously the spirit of thinking alwayes and of doing what is right that as we cannot be without thee so we may live unto thee The Illustration O Beloved what an excellent Prayer is this How deep how sweet how alone able to save us if said with the same spirit that taught it and if performed as well as â—aid For if we neither think nor do amisse how can we ever sin and consequently how fail of being saved Again if we onely subsist by the preservation of Almighty God as is most true how can we presume to live unto our selves and not unto him As therefore our beeing is purely and onely by him so ought our living to be purely and onely to him not as it is God help us to our selves as if we had been our own makers or could for the least minute preserve our selves how daring so ever our comportment is as though we were our own and not God Almighties creatures Idolizing dayly to our selves sinning hourely and provoking God to undo his own handy work by damning not annihilating of us were not his mercy above our malice which malice onely can attempt our annihilation I need say no more of the excellency of this Prayer for whilest I strive to amplifie it by other words I do contract it rather then inlarge it which is more patheticall and significant in the short method it observes then any ampliation even by the tongues or pens of Angels can make it and shewes us That as God is but one simple essence in himself yet contains within him all the variety that is possible in infinite millions of creatures or worlds indeed so he can if he please contract into one word the sense and meaning of all the languages of the world and truly much is contracted in this Prayer above I shall therefore say no more in commends of it but onely shew how rarely well it suites with the Epistle and Gospell following how as it were eminentially it contains them both the former in begging first the spirit of alwayes thinking and doing right that so we may be and live to God as the Epistle adviâ—eth which you see quits us of all obligation to our selves and ties us up to the duty of a spirituall life and of a corporall death both which are petitioned in the Prayer the latter in shewing us how to prevent the danger of such like cheats to our Lord and Master which the Gospell mentions by prepossessing our thoughts with a right addresse of them to our masters pleasure and profit and consequently by preventing our actions towards him to be unjust when we acknowledge we cannot be at all but such creatures as he makes us and thence we can have no hope to be preserved by him in a wicked being which he never gave us nor can we expect he should preserve us in it so the Prayer concludes begging we may live onely to him who onely is the authour of our being The Epistle Rom. 8. v. 12. c. 12 Therefore Brethren we are debtours not to the flesh to live according to the flesh 13 For if you live according to the flesh you shall die but if by the spirit you mortifie the deeds of the flesh you shall live 14 For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God 15 For you have not received the spirit of servitude again in fear but you have received the spirit of adoption of sonnes wherein we cry Abba Father 16 For the Spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit that we are the sonnes of God 17 And if sonnes heirs also heirs truly of God and coheirs of Christ The Explication 12. THis therefore is S. Paul's inference or conclusion upon the premises wherein he had said we were by Baptisme regenerate born again not of flesh and bloud but of Christ in whom the Baptized must live as he did in spirit not in flesh and so consequently are no longer debtours to flesh but to spirit and must no longer live to the flesh but to the spirit 13. By the spirit is here understood Christ and his grace not our own soules for though our bodies live by our souls yet our soules must live by Christ who is their life and we must by conformity to his will mortifie both our own bodies and soules too if we will live spiritually in and by him we must dye to concupiscence and inordinate desires for till then they are not mortified but live in us and we by them live fleshly not spiritually 14. To be led by the Spirit signifies that Christ should act in us not onely we in our selves and then we are true Sons of God when we are led by him by his holy Spirit who is our life as he was S. Paul's when the Apostle said Gal. 2.20 he lived now not he but Christ in him But here S. Austin playes prettily upon the word acting We must saith he act our selves and yet let our action be from him rather then from us for then we act well when he makes us act when our action is radicated in him and squared to his holy will So here to be led argues the impulse of his holy Spirit and the voluntary cooperation of our action too for then saith S. Austin we are led by his Spirit when we do as we ought to do 15. The spirit of servitude or servile fear was that which God led the Jewes withal fear of temporal punishments but we are led by a better spirit that of love and so must serve God for love of him rather then for fear of hell and as his adopted children rather then servants so much nobler is our condition then that of the Jewes And this spirit of adoption is no lesse then the holy Ghost himself communicated unto us as v. 6. was said on Sunday within the Octaves of Nativity For as God gave his own Deity to Christ when he made Christ the Son of God so the holy Ghost gives us himself to make us also the Sons of God by adoption in virtue of our Saviours Passion whence we have the priviledge
passion to us perpetually our humane mortality would fail in all her works of charity Whence it is holy Church to ripen her charity and to preserve it for eternity begs in the Prayer above that it may by the perpetual propitiation of Christ that is to say by the continual application of his Passion to us in the sacrifices and Sacraments of holy Church be withdrawn from hurtful things and directed to those which are saving The Gospel Matt. 6. v. 24. 24 No man can serve two Masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will sustain the one and contemn the other You cannot serve God and Mammon 25 Therefore I say unto you be not careful for your life what you shall eat neither for your body what rayment you shall put on is not the life more then the meat and the body more then the rayment 26 Behold the fowles in the ayr that they sowe not neither reap they nor gather into barns and your heavenly Father feedeth them are not you much more of price then they 27 And which of you by his caring can adde to his stature one cubit 28 And for rayment why are you careful consider the Lillies of the field how they grow they labour not neither do they spin 29 But I say unto you that neither Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these 30 And if the grasse of the field which to day is and to morrow is cast into the oven God doth so clothe how much more you O ye of very small faith 31 Be not careful therefore saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewith shall we be covered 32 For all these things the heathen doth seek after for your Father knoweth that you need all these things 33 Seek therefore first the Kingdome of Heaven and all these things shall be given you besides The Explication 24. BY serving is here understood loving and obeying out of love not serving for hire since so we may serve many masters By can is meant can easily So the text intimates onely a huge difficulty not an absolute impossibility That this is the sense the following words prove of hate and love Now the next words of sustaining at least argue a possibility though with difficulty for to sustain or bear argues a power thereof The last words of this verse you cannot serve God and Mammon are taken strictly for loving and obeying so thus the Apostle sayes God and riches are incompatible masters 25. By careful is here understood anxious or solicitous for your life is understood your soul because by that we live and we are not to be anxious for our soules sake what we eat because it doth not eat to keep it self alive but onely the body The like anxiety is forbidden even for the body too how it shall be attired The following words are Christ his argument from the lesse to the greater as who should say I who have created your souls out of nothing will not fail to give you meat to conserve them and the body in union and health which is to shew us we shall not want his lesse favour that have had his greater so if he give our bodies life and health it is not likely he will deny us clothing for our bodies unlesse we fall to be anxiously solicitous how to clothe our selves which anxiety is here forbidden and we are counselled to rely upon Gods providence herein 26. The same naturall argument flows in all the six following verses But it is here worthy observation that Christ rather instances in birds then beasts to shew us that as they live in the air off from the earth for most part so man should have his thoughts in heaven and not in earth and should expect his food rather from heavenly providence then from earthly solicitude 27. And as such solicitude were vain so is it to care what we eat or how long we protract our lives by curiosity of diet And this example of a cubit is not improperly brought in to shew us that as the due proportion of a man is to be as square or broad when his arms are stretched out as he is long from head to foot so a soul well proportioned must be solid in virtue and constant in the pursuit thereof 28 29. As the former verses argued to cast off care of meats so these two next argue in like manner against anxiety in clothing exemplyfying in the delicate attire of Lillies and of Solomon who by art the ape of nature had made his attire to be decked with Lillies of most curious needlework to shew the robes of grace or nuptiall garments of our souls should be as fragrant and as pure in Gods sight as Lillies are in ours and if they be but so it imports not how our bodies are attired 30. By adding the low similitude of the grasses beauty after that high and rich one of the Lillie and Solomons garments Christ augments the reason we have to confide in Gods providence towards the meanest of persons since he is not wanting to adorn the grasse as he doth By grasse is here understood all plants at least such as make fuell for ovens for else in vain had he spoken of putting grasse into the oven if it had not been that after these fine green plants of the field were cut down and lost the splendour of their growing state and served now for nothing but fuell to fire he had not intended to shew us that if God were so carefull for so small a thing as grasse and little green plants growing to adorn them as he doth he would be much more carefull to cloth us with attire sufficient for this life whom he intends to invest in robes of glory for all eternity By the close of this verse rebuking our very small faith is not understood our want of belief in God but our want of trust or confidence rather that he whom we believe to be so infinitely great and good can and will have care of our least necessities 31. He well subsumes to close his argument that after all these examples of his solicitude for the meanest creatures he will not be carelesse of us if we confide in him as we ought to do for our due supplies both in meat and clothing 32. This is an excellent argument against the anxiety above that it is common to heathens and therefore no way proper to Christians who since they know God sees their wants they ought to referre the supply thereof to his omniscience as God to his love as father to his power as King of heaven and earth so if he see and supply not he is pleased we shall suffer want and therefore in vain we seek to have that else where which God pleaseth to abridge us of rather in this case we must be content as the grasse to lose our lustre then covet to enjoy it when it is designed for feuell to the fire
therein Just thus it is with holy Churches preaching admit a million of people be assembled to one sole Preacher in the pulpit is his Sermon ever the worse because it dynts the soul of every hearer there and moves him so as if the Preacher knew the heart of every auditour he had whom yet he never saw in all his life nor knowes him now he sees him would any man condemn this Preacher No admire him rather and in him adore Almighty God who with one speech could touch the quick of every soul alive And so it is with holy Churches prayers the commoner they are the more peculiarly they touch each pious persons soul if rightly understood they seem to reach as far as all the preachers of the Church can scrue into a soul and farther too for who so sayes them with a zeal suitable to the Spirit whence they flow he like a river runs into the sea whence all the waters have their spring and is not lost although he beâ— not found but rather swells to be a sea of spirit while he falls out of his private devotions into the Ocean of the Churches prayer and sayes to himself Matt. 23.23 These things ought to be done and those things ought not to be omitted O Christians what a sovereign cure have we to day against the worst contagion in the Church the spirit of division of faction Say but this prayer devoutly read but the lessons of the other services of holy Church to day agreeable to this prayer and I shall hope to hear no more of faction in the Church of division in the house of the Holy Ghost of dissention among Roman Catholicks much lesse amongst the Priests of holy Church for in them it were a contagion worse then diabolical who as they are all Ministers of one onely God so should they all agree in one to guide the souls they are to govern in the spirit of peace and unity of love and charity which they shall never teach better then when they give example of it to their flocks The Epistle Ephes 4.1 1 I therefore prisoner in our Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called 2 With all humilitie and mildnesse with patience supporting one another in charity 3 Carefull to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace 4 One body and one spirit as you are called in one hope of your vocation 5 One Lord one Faith one Baptisme 6 One God and Father of all which is over all and by all and in us all 7 Who is blessed world without end Amen The Explication 1. THe cause why he beseecheth them is in regard they had the happinesse to be made of Gentiles Christians and so equall with the Jewes that were the chosen people of God He calls himself prisoner in our Lord because he was in prison for our Lord for teaching the faith of Christ Walking here is understood living Note the word Vocation is of speciall regard and so imports a speciall obligation they had to comply with their said vocation which was indeed their conversion from Gentilisme to Christianitie 2. This verse specifies the eminent marks of Christians from Gentiles the one proud harsh furious quarrelsome the other therefore humble milde patient loving that so it might appeare a religious change to come from one contrary to another Supporting each other imports bearing with each others infirmities In Charitie is to say by or with Charitie repending good for evil 3. By unitie of spirit is here meant unanimitie that is though in bodies divided yet in mind they should be one and make it their studie so to be thus to comply with the care thereof commended if not commanded also This verse is hugely against all schismaticall division in the Church receding from the common Doctrine to follow the fancies of private spirits By the word bond is understood removing private sense in point of religion for a bond imports a tie between parties and so abandons singularitie when it must binde many together in the peace of unanimitie 4. This verse is exhortatorie stirring up to be all as one body and one soul that as you are called to one hope of Heaven by this your vocation to Christianitie so you goe all thither as one man since the Church is properly called one civill man while all the Members of it are regulated by one Law of Christ by one holy Spirit And indeed Saint Paul useth a huge Art telling us we have all one hope namely Heaven thereby to make us tend all one way to the attaining thereof 5. One Lord Christ Jesus one Faith that which the Apostles preached one Baptisme that which is given in due matter and forme applied with due intention water accompanying these words I baptize thee in the Name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost according as holy Church intendeth when this Sacrament is administred 6. In this verse the Apostle summes up all he said before As we have but one God who is our common Father so we must have but one spirit lest we degenerate from being his children who will own none but those that are one in him and one to one another all others are bastards and cannot be brothers because not begotten of him that knowes no division but consists of unitie and simplicitie No God is above all men by his Majestie and Deitie he is through all things by his power and efficacie in them penetrating and passing through them all as freely as we doe through the Aire in all things by his essence and being in us Christians by his grace which makes us be his children and by his glory which makes us be his heires Others understand by this triple division the Apostle means that God the Father is above us all by creation God the Sonne by redemption runs through us with the Sea of his passion God the Holy Ghost is in us all by his sanctifying grace The Application 1. SAint Paul being by his imprisonment separated from his Converts the Ephesians and desirous in litle to send them much counsell how they might walk worthy of the vocation in which they were called summes up here those virtues that are most necessary for new converted souls Humilitie as the foundation whereupon they must build their monuments of a blessed Eternitie in imitation of Almightie God who raised all the fabricke of humane salvation upon the Basis of his own abasement Mildnesse in testimony they were no more children of wrath and indignation but of their milde Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ A charitable Patience that is to say for love of God supporting bearing with one another as the onely means to keep themselves in favour with Almighty God whom they hourely much more exasperate then any man can do them And Unanimitie as the badge of perfect Christianitie testifying they are onely true lovers of one another who are right believers in Jesus Christ
once would let us know the dead child being a Jew represents the expiration of the Jewish Synagogue by the plantation of the Church of Christ For as this diseased Gentile fell sick when Jairus his child was born so the Gentiles fell to their brutish Idolatry figured by the Bloudy Flux when the Jewes were born to right belief in Abraham and therefore as Christ went to raise this child from death to life and by the way first healed the diseased woman so he came first to the Jewes yet the Gentiles received and believed in him before the Jewes whose conversion or being raised from the death of infidelity to the life of Faith is not to be till after all Gentiles are first reduced and then at last even the Jewes shall generally be converted This is the mystical sense of the present story prosecuted in these three verses onely we are to observe by this womans Faith that the Gentiles are of much more easie and entire belief then the Jewes besides this place gives a great ground for the Catholick doctrine of revering reliques since here the woman was cured by the onely touch of our Saviours garments hemm and Eusebius writes that she in memory of this favour shewed unto her made a coat like that of our Saviours and kept it religiously in her house and that diverse who were diseased went away from her perfectly cured upon the sole touch of this garments hemm also 23. 24. The musick our Saviour found here was onely such as usually in those dayes did accompany all burials Our Saviours saying the child is not dead did not deny but she was so for all that onely his meaning was she should live again and therefore he accounted her death but a sleep in the sight of God because her soul was not summoned to the barre of Judgement being to return and lead a longer life in this world though this saying of Christ might also import his modesty in not making difficult his works to get thereby popular applause However they knew and so did Christ the child was really dead to all humane power of recovery but that they might see death to God was but as sleep to nature since he that could out of nothing make all things could much more easily out of a dead body make a living creature and so as to God death and sleep are much alike in respect of privation of life whence it is frequent for Christ to call death obdormition or sleeping onely thus he did in Lazarus his case after he was four dayes buried Joh. 11.44 and thus you see here he doth in this present case of the dead child But as commonly men judge of all things by outward appearances and of other mens powers by comparing them to their own so here these mourners laugh at Christ for saying the dead child was onely asleep as who should say they held it impossible for him to revive her which argues they were sufficiently satisfied she was truly dead to all this world 25. 26. Note his bidding them depart when he sayes she is not dead argues that their diffidence in his power did not deserve the honour to be eye-witnesses of the miracle how it was done though afterwards they had proof enough it was most true and again it argues he was not seeking popular applause when he went in alone leaving the company without taking onely the child's parents and his disciples with him S. Mark sayes Peter James and John to shew it was not ultroneous fasting that conferred sanctity of which you heard before but a lively Faith and an ardent love to God wherewith his Apostles were endowed and so fit to be now witnesses of his and after workers of as great miracles themselves though they did not run the vain-glorious wayes of Pharisaical fasting or the like Note the Scripture phrase is here pathetical saying Christ held the childs hand in such sort probably as officers take hold of such as they arrest to carry away with them and so shew their power over them for thus our Saviour seemed to snatch the body of this child from death and to command her soul from entring into hell but to animate again the body thereby to shew he had perfect dominion over life and death And it seems the manner of this was extraordinary when the story of it ends by saying it was divulged all the countrey over for a famous miracle though St. Mark sayes Christ gave the girle to her parents bidding them say nothing Mar. 5.43 to shew his modesty and that he sought not the worlds applause but onely Gods honour and glory Yet their disobedience in this was not unseemly The Application 1. THis Gospel of the Jewes and Gentiles Infidelity is as we heard in the Explication made a whole Type of all Iniquity whatsoever and yet is most peculiarly proper to the Epistle inculcating so sincere a sayntity as above because as to that sayntity pardon of iniquity is necessary and this pardon is mystically represented in the raising Jairus his daughter from the brink of death which is the natural punishment of sinne so to the said sayntity there is also necessary a detestation of all affection to sin which detestation is also represented by the cure upon the woman sick of the Issue of bloud not unfitly likened to reiterated or accustomary sinne which argues a huge affection thereunto 2. What then more proper for Christians at the reading of this holy Text then first to procure an act of contrition for all guilt of sinne upon their soules and next to detest all affection to any sinne whatsoever especially to those which have been formerly to them accustomary for those are properly bonds which we have sealed to the devil while we hamper our selves with giving them up as our well advised acts of our yet most abominable wicked deeds 3. Say now beloved if our holy Mother have not fram'd a fitting Prayer when to this purpose she brings charity to day upon her knees preparing her self for the grand account she is next Sunday put in mind to make By petitioning as above an acquittance of her sinful debts by absolution from the guilt thereof and a cancelling of all her bonds to the devil by teating her affections to sin in pieces and planting her love from hence upon Almighty God above On the four and twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 24.34 AMen I say to you this Generation shall not passe untill all be done Heaven and Earth shall passe but my word shall not passe saith our Lord. Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer STirre up we beseech thee O Lord the wills of thy Faithful that they more diligently preparing the fruit of thy divine work may receive the greater remedies of thy mercy The Illustration WE are this day closing up the Ring of our devotion which we desire all the devotes of our sodality to wear in testimony they are of
making it my Work that I can onely say it is my Observation and must give the honour of it to the Prefect of the Sodality his Holinesse for no other single Person can challenge that Priviledge of prescribing the Formes of publick Prayers unto the Universall Church though in truth we must by Name attribute the first Collection of these Prayers unto Gelasius the first Pope of that Name in the year of our Lord 482. and the stating them into the order we now have them in throughout the year unto Saint Gregory the first most worthy called the Great for his remarkable Saintity in the year 590. who in his Volâ—me intituled of Sacraments meaning of Mysteries for it seemes he found these Prayers to be most profoundly mysterious indeed as now I here endeavour to declare throughout my Book hath added some more Prayers to what Gelasius made and hath compacted them altogether as into a Magazine of the Churches Piety whereunto by Decree of two severall Councels namely the second Milevitan and the third Carthaginian held in Saint Agustines time or thereabouts it was forbid to add any more unlesse they were approved by a Generall Councell or at least some Nationall one of Bishops See the 12th Canon in the first Councell above It hath pleased us say the Fathers that the Prayers and divine Services which shall be approved of in this Councell be celebrated by all and that no other be used in the Church unlesse such as shall by the most prudent men bee made or are approved by the Synod least any thing contrary to Faith or through ignorance or lesse then due studie be composed These Authorities I cite not so much to vaunt my own design as to avouch I am not worthy to be Father of it otherwise then by Observation as above I said but thence I am bold indeed to commend the Devotion unto our Sodality as a practise of the most solid Piety imaginable And here I must crave leave to mind the Reader that it will very little availe a man to be of this Christian Sodality unless he make himself worthy of it by his saintitie which he shall soonest arive unto by making the Scripture his studie as was before desired and by taking it often in the Cordiall of Holy Churches prayers when he doth not swallow the greater parts of it all at once by reading much thereof expounded as hee hath it here for this will alwaies be to feed on heavenly food such as can never breed hereticall diseases in the body of our Sodality but must needs give saving nourishment to all our soules and make us feeding here a while on these sweet honey Combs of Grace within our holy Hive feast for all etetnity on the better fruits of glory with all the holy Company of this Sodality in Heaven To conclude I shall desire the Reader to know my aim in this Book was not to set out any thing absolvtely new but something very necessary for the Praying people and exceeding usefull for the preaching Pastor since as the one will have matter enough of Piety from hence so the other will have ground enough for ampliation and to dilate himself upon a short warning by way of exhortation to the People though he be destitute of other Books to help himself and had it not been that I held my self obliged to repair by other men my own omissions in this kind out of a multitude of diversions other wayes as also that I stand more strictly bound of late to help the people then formerly I was my superiours best know why and how truly I should have shaken off I fear the labour of this laborious work whereby I shall not yet be covetous of any other honour then to be door-keeper unto this Sodality and to subscribe my self the most unworthy member of it F. P. HEre followeth a Table directing how to apply each Psalme to the proper Key or genuine sense thereof which I take out of the proemiall Annotations to the second Tome of the holy Bible as it is translated by the Reverend Priests of the Colledge of Doway beginning with the book of Psalmes And though perhaps some Psalmes may seem as proper to other Keyes as unto those they have assigned yet I give so much to their Authority that till some greater countermand it this may be more safely relyed upon then any other and therefore I recommend this way as the best that yet is found out for rendring the book of Plalmes intelligible in some measure to the Common people and very usefull to the Pastours of the Church who may perhaps more safely rely upon these Senses than any private Judgement of their own because these men were versed in the Learned Languages and made it their study to apply each Psalme to a right Key according to such rules as are by them laid down in these Proemialls for that purpose Now these Keyes they reduce to Ten in number which are as follow 1. God in him-himself THe First is of God as he is in himself Trine in Persons and One in Essence and of his Divine Attributes 2. God Creating The Second is of Gods Works in his Creatures as of the Creation and Conservation of the whole World 3. God governing by providence The Third is of the Divine Providence especially towards Man in protecting and rewarding the Just and permitting and punishing the Evill 4. God by Moses leading the Hebrews out of Aegypt into Canaan The Fourth is of the peculiar calling of the Hebrew people their beginning in Abraham Isaack and Jacob their marvellous increase in Aegypt their diverse estates many admirable and miraculous things done amongst them with their ingratitude rejection and reprobation 5. God Redeemer of Mankind The Fifth and principall Key is of our Redeemer Jesus Christ and of his Incarnation Nativity Life and Death Resurrection Ascention and Glory all prophetically foretold 6. Christ erecting his Church The Sixth is of the Conversion of the Gentiles or of the Catholike Church of Christ ever visible in her Pastours Sacraments and Sacrifice of the holy Altar and propagated over all the world 7. Faith and good Works The Seventh is of Faith and good Works which is the true manner of Christians serving God 8. The proper acts of David The Eighth is of Davids own Works and of Gods singular benefits towards him for which he rendreth thanks and Divine Praises as also of his recounting his enemies dangers and afflictions of minde and body namely by Saul Absolon and others in which cases he humbly beseecheth Gods protection and further he expresseth himself a perfect Image and pattern of a sincere and hearty-penitent bewailing confessing and punishing his own sins 9. Death Judgment The Nineth is of Death and Judgement the End and Renovation of this World with the generall Resurrection 10. Heaven Hell The Tenth and last is of Heaven and Hell according as every one deserveth in this Life NOw in the Table following These
corporall eyes to the latter that their time is now come also of awaking from the sleep of infidelity and of their other enormious sins being the Redeemer of all mankinde was actually come though even the Jewes also after Christs Birth were fast enough asleep in their infidelity most of them and so were capable of this speech to them even in that sense too 12. By the night is here meant the time before Christs comming made dark as night with infidelity By the day the time after our Saviours Birth rendered bright as day with the light of the Gospel the works of darkness are Sin because they shut out the light of grace from our Souls the Armour of Light are acts of Vertue works of Grace and in these words Saint Paul minds us that our life is here a spiritual warfare since we know Armour is necessary for Warriours though the Greek Text imports by Armour of Light a kind of habit proper to the day and this is not inconsistent with the other sense above for Armour is a kind of habit too 13. This Verse seemes to begin with prosecuting the last sense in the former as if it were indecent to appear in the day without our Armour of Light as above but if it be taken as independent thereof it imports not for the sense is full in it self Aâ— in the day of Grace as in the day of the illuminating Gospel let us walk honestly that is modestly converse religiously and shew our selves to be children of Light by our works shining to the edification of our neighbour and glory of God Not any more in Banquettings and Drunkenness feastings and excesses of Wines These you know are works of the Flesh not of the Spirit or the Grace of God by Chamber-works the Apostle means here plainly Fornication by Impudicities more petulant and wanton actions of Lust even in publick such as indeed may be well called carnall impudencies Not in Contention not striving for vain-glory and popular applause whence followes the forbidden Emulation which is an envie at our neighbours greater good or esteem than our own See therefore here three of the capitall Sins so represented unto us as by all means to be avoided Gluttony Lechery Envy all being acts and deeds of darkness not fit to appear in the day light of the Gospel which now shines bright among us 14. By putting on Christ is here meant being dressed up in such Vertues as may make us appear Christians men clad in the Livery the Sanctity of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ and so abundant the Apostle in this phrase bids our Vertues be that they may hang as full Garments all over us for this difference there is betwixt carrying and putting on of cloathes that when carryed they are cumbersome and not adorning when put on they are light and becoming So to carry Vertue onely wrapt up in the speculation of it is no way graceful but to unfold it by the practice thereof this becomes a good Christian and this is truly to put on Christ not onely to study and speculate but to practice Vertue The Application 1. THe two first Verses of this Epistle are wholly and clearly describing the effects of the Incarnation and do exhort to a due Christian comportment at such a season That is now to prepare our selves for our Deification since therefore God became man that man might become God I have said ye are Gods and all sons of the Highest Psal 82. v. 6. 2. The third Verse tells us how unsuitable all Sin must needs be at this season though indeed it cannot be allowable at any time but especially how unseasonable these three deadly Sins now are which here the Apostle specifies and under them forbids us all the rest Gluttony Lechery Envy For nothing sooner starves a Soul to death than a gluttonous pampering of the Body nothing more odious to our God incarnate than to pollute that humane nature which Jesus could not endure to take upon him but in the sacred womb of his unpolluted Virgin Mother Nothing so unseasonable at this season of love as for a Christian to envy Christ in his neighbour just now when he coming to save us commands us to love each other as he loves us all 3. The last Verse gives us an armour of Proof against all danger of sin whatsoever for as Jesus by taking our sins upon himself did redeem us so we by putting on his Vertues may deserve to be saved that is to say we may be capable of Salvation for other desert we have not of our selves than a meer capacity of Heaven through the merits of our Saviours death and passion applyed to us cooperating towards that which we cannot operate our own Salvations since it is the onely participation of his merits that makes us fit to receive his rewards for those we call our meritorious actions such as Saint Augustine required saying He that made thee without thee will not save thee without thee Yet the same Doctor lest we should presume too much upon our selves says also When God rewards mans works he crowns his own Gifts for even our cooperation whereby we merit is the speciall Gift of God Which we Petition in the Prayer above most aptly set to the Tune of this Epistle The Gospel LUKE 21. ver 25. c. 25. ANd there shall be signes in the Sun and the Moon and the Stars and upon the Earth distresse of Nations for the confusion of the sound of the Sea and Waves 26. Men withering for fear and expectation what shall come upon the whole world for the powers of Heaven shall be moved 27. And then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and majesty 28. But when these things shall begin to come to passe look up and lift up your heads for your redemption is at hand 29. And he spake to them a similitude see the figtree and all trees 30. When they now bud forth fruit out of themselves you know that Summer is nigh 31. So you also when you shall these see things come to passe know that the Kingdom of God is nigh 32. Amen I say to you that this generation shall not pass till all be done 33. Heaven and Earth shall pass but my Words shall not pass The Explication 25. THese Signes appearing in the Sun Moon and Stars argue they shall not perish but remain set to another Series or order of being than they were before such Signes in them shall portend the dismall day of Judgement And indeed how can there be other than a sad distress on earth amongst all the Nations thereof upon the confusion of sound that will then be in the boiling Sea and Waves which by the general conflagration fire falling from Heaven shall be far more agitated than ever by any storm or tempest these commonly happening but in some part of the Sea whereas this disturbance shall arise from the very bottom of the channell
Such as may prepare the way for Jesus Christ to come amongst us that by his coming we may deserve to serve Almighty God with purified Souls How purified By loving him and so deserving to be his Fathers Servants in a high degree indeed as fore-runners to his Sacred Son as Baptists as Angels sent before his face to prepare his wayes and consequently as men than whom greater did never arise amongst the sons of women Blessed God! to what a height of perfection doth holy Church invite her Children to day being but on Sunday last raised from their dead sleep their trance of Sin and yet no marvell for Christianity is in truth the summity or top of all perfection and of all Christians we know the Catholike to be Top and Top-gallant that is to say the highest of men which consequently so purifies their Souls as they become at least the lowest of Angels since in true morality the highest of the inferiour arrives to the perfection of the lowest of his Superiours whence we read of Saint John Baptist That he was an Angel sent before the face of Jesus Christ to prepare his wayes Luke 7. ver 27. Now lest this discourse seeme but gratuite and to have little or no connexion to the whole service of the day however we finde it genuine enough perhaps unto the Prayer see what Lessons of Purity and sanctity of Soules the Epistle gives us insisting altogether upon the highest of Sanctity mutuall peace and charity such as made the two most discordant people in the world united perfectly in one the Jew and Gentile who before they were in Christ united and had their hearts raised up to heavenly affections detested one another but once meeting both in the love of one God they became in Christ one Thing one Body of that undivided Church which hath the onely Son of God to be the head thereof our Saviour Jesus Christ Nay see further how this dayes Gospel makes of humane Soules thus raised up by mutuall love by having all one God and beleeving equally in the doctrine of his sacred Son Baptistick Saints and consequently spirits Angelicall whilst what is read to day of Saint John Baptist is spoken to us as either being or invited to be like him fore-runners to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ voices crying out in the desart of this world prepare the wayes of our Lord. O Christians O Catholicks at least remember we are now in holy Advent a time set out apart to prepare us for a worthy receiving of our Saviour at his Nativity into this world be it therefore spent as Saint John Baptist did imploy his dayes in pennance fasting praying in purifying of our Souls in raising mortall man up to the purity immortality and sanctity of Angels so shall we pray as all our Pastours preach to day which is I hope a sufficient adjusting of this dayes Prayer unto the following Epistle and Gospel of the day bidding us with one mind and one mouth glorifie God which then we doe when our practice and our Prayer is answerable to what our Pastors teach and preach unto us The Epistle ROM 15. ver 4. c. 4. VVHat things soever have been written to our learning they are written that by the patience and consolation of the Scriptures we may have hope 5. And the God of patience and of comfort give you to be of one mind towards one another according to Jesus Christ 6. That of one mind with one mouth you may glorifie God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 7. For the which cause receive one another as Christ also hath received you unto the honour of God 8. For I say Christ Jesus to have been Minister of the Circumcision for the verity of God to confirm the promises of the Fathers 9. But the Gentiles to honour God for his mercy as it is written Therefore will I confesse to Thee in the Gentiles O Lord and will sing to thy name 10. And again he saith Rejoyce ye Gentiles with his people 11. And again Praise all ye Gentiles our Lord and magnifie him all ye people 12. And again Isaiah saith There shall be the root of Jesse and he that shall rise up to rule the Gentiles in him the Gentiles shall hope 13. And the God of hope replenish you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope and in the vertue of the holy Ghost The Explication 4. SAint Paul alludes here to what was written in the old Law and makes it all wholly and entirely to have been a lessen for our instruction at least though not a rule to our actions since the abrogation of it and if he say thus of the abrogated Law much more ought we to receive and read for our instructions all thâ—â— is written in the new Law which shall remain to the worlds end unaltered But he applyes this speech particularly now to what he said in the immediate verse before citing the Prophet Davids words Psal 68. The curses of those that curse Thee have fallen upon me making Christ speak these words as taking upon his own person the Curses and Sins of the people committed against his Heavenly Father to restore to God as it were his lost honour if we may so say by assuming these Curses to himself as also by his suffering to appease the Divine wrath and in this sense he applyes his speech to the Romanes that they might convert to their instructions and comfort this which in their behalf our Saviour took upon himself namely the guilt and burthen of the Gentiles Sins as well as those of the Jewes so to ingratiate them also to his heavenly Father By the patience and consolation of the â—criptures meant the patience they teach us in their singular examples thereof and the comfort they bring us in letting us see we may by following the said examples hope for the like rewards which now the Saints in Heaven have for so the last words of this verse import 5. The Apostle calls him the God of patience and of comfort because he is infinitely patient infinitely comforting and because his Vertues are not as in Man his Ornaments but his Essence so that he is patience it self comfort it self and more if we could more express Then we are most properly of one mind one towards another when we wish and do as well to others as to our selves According to Christ as Christ was to us and as he gave us command to be saying Love one another as I have loved you This is indeed absolute perfection and this is the true Badge of a perfect Christian 6. That of one minde with one mouth c. Then we do truly glorifie God when we conforme our selves in all things to his holy Will and this we can not all do unless all our mindes be one as he is in us all to that one effect of glorifying him so when one pretends God is glorified thus and another will not
still the same constant man he is not blown like a Reed out of his former beleife by the blast of Herods breath committing him to prison 8. Our Saviour prosecutes his design in the former verse of rectifying the people in their judgements about S. Iohn by asking them whether they thought Iohn a man flexible in his minde as those are who daily varie their apparrel and pamper up themselves in the most changeable of vices a Mollities or softnesse of nature yeelding and altering it self at every least impression made upon it Or went you out to see a man in Kings houses that is of Kings Houses a Courtier variable as the winde turning and winding his opinion as they doe their habits who follow the fashions of the Court No Iohn if in the desart clad in hair feeding little praying much and thence constant in his opinion what ere you thinke to the contrary by his Disciples coming from him to me with the question as abovâ— 9. And least they should thinke they stood sufficiently informed of Iohn the Baptist his merits by believing him a Prophet our Saviour asks even that question as if it were below St. Iohns titles to be a Prophet and so Christ said he is more than a Prophet Why be cause Prophets onely foretell future things but John both told the people the Messias was suddenly to come and had besides the honour to shew him to them as well as to tell them of him So he was truly a Prophet and more than a Prophet 10. And that they may see how much more he tells them John is an Angel among men and affirmes the Prophesie of Malachy cited in this verse to be verified of the Baptist to shew thereby that as God formerly spake to the People but by the mouthes of Men who did foretell them he was to come and save the world yet now that he was actually come himself he sends more than man an Angel of men at least John the Baptist both to prepare his way and to point him out to the people with his finger saying Loe here he is that hath been long expected the great Messias the Man-God Christ Jesus whose shoo-strings I am not worthy to untie though you esteem me his equall nay some of you value me above him too The Application 1. WHat our Saviour in the Baptist did commend holy Church to us now recommends His Fortitude his Austerity and his Angelicall Purity We shall professe the first by not onely standing the shock of open persecution but that also of the inward warre our senses make perpetually against our Reason if we shall rather choose to die than to commit the least sinne against Almighty God for thus we shew the fortitude of Grace while we repell the assaults of Nature 2. The second we shall then be perfect in when we perswade our selves eternall felicity cannot be bought too dear by any our temporall austerity and when we cease to flatter one another that mortification is not necessary unlesse to expiate enormious sinnes Alas fond souls why then did Jesus why his Blessed Mother why the holy Baptist use Austerity of life they had no sins to purge away by penance no they for our example were austere and to declare that temporall pleasures are commonly the causes of eternall punishments 3. The third is as the way unto our Journies end for since by Angels we are onely once removed from God either we must approach him by the purity Angelicall or be for ever separated from him with the spirits Diabolicall For prevention whereof and for obtaining the Baptistick vertues we fitly pray to day as above On the third Sunday of Advent The Antiphon LUKE 1. ver 41. BLessed art thou Mary who didst believe our Lord These things shall be perfected in Thee which were spoken to thee by our Lord. Vers Drop c. as before pag. 1. Resp Be the Earth c. The Prayer LEnd we beseech thee O Lord thine ear unto our Prayers and enlighten the darkness of our minde with the grace of thy Visitation The Illustration SEe how like himself the holy Ghost makes us pray to day when Spiritually altogether this Prayer alludes unto the other Service of the day for literally there is no connexion at all between the Epistle Gospel and this dayes Prayer but Spiritually they suite exceeding well together And first as relating to the time of Advent alluding to that immediately before the reall Birth of Christ wherein the holy Patriarchs and Prophets prayed as we have heard in the two foregoing Sundayes but with this addition that still the nearer we come to the Feast of Christmas the nearer the Prayers represent Christ unto us and now indeed so near as if upon the summons of two Prayers onely gone before Christ were come already so farre on his way from Heaven to Earth that we may now even whisper in his ear as this Prayer seemes to doe begging the Loan of his Eares unto us in his transient carreer as if each of us were forced to stop him on his way for some Emolumentall occasion particular to our selves while we say Lend we beseech thee O Lord thine ear to our Prayers or as if our guilty Consciences perswaded us he might be still as deaf to us though at hand according to the Epistle as he had been to all the world beside for four thousand years together and therefore we are now taught humbly to round him in the Ear and as it were with a fervorous zeal to run like Lacquies after him begging the favour of a private whisper as he goes and that meerly to tell him our case is worse than others that his generall Grace of Visitation to the whole world will hardly be enough for us unless he please particularly to enlighten the darknesse of our minde with the particular grace of his speciall Visitation to us though it be by an application onely of his Ear to our particular suite as he runs posting through the desart of common sinne where we more sadly each than other may piously believe we lie insnared and want a little glimmering of Grace more than ordinary to inlighten us that we may first seeing lament and then lamenting expiate our selves of all our sinnes whatsoever against the blessed time of his Nativity and indeed the best way to avail our selves of the annuall Feasts especially those which are mysteries of our redemption is to presentiate the same as now actually flowing and first being arrived to our knowledges for so shall our souls be raised unto a piety suitable to the thing as well as to the time that puts it into our minds And what Christian is there so obdurate so stony-hearted as if he could every year perswade himself which holy Church exhorts us to both by our Pastours and our Prayers that things were then in doing which he knowes are done and that himself were an actor in each Scean in each Feast or Mystery represented would not relent
and soften towards his God who like a melted Goodnesse came to pour out himself amongst us This this beloved were the part of good Christians to pray now in this sense to run like Lacquies nay like shadowes near up to the new Incarnate God who being in himself an Inaccessable light was fain to ecclipse his Glory in the cloud of humane Nature that so within the shadow of his shade-yeilding body we might approach unto him and whisper our necessities in his sacred Ears who now as man will hear us however as God the whole world seemed to cry out in vain to him for 4000. years together Say then Beloved this Prayer to day with this religious Duty this All-ghostly sense dictated unto us by the holy Ghost and we soon shall see the effect it worketh in us towards rendring us the perfect Christians that this dayes Epistle exhorts us to be Joyfull modest resigned thankfull and peacefull even to the surpassing the understanding nay more inlightned Angels running before the face of Jesus Christ to his Crib where born he will immediately dispence in ample manner the speciall Grace of his visitation to us all that thus like Baptists as the Gospell to day exhorts shall now prepare his wayes before him to the future Feast of his Nativity And thus we see both Epistle and Gospell of this day though not litterally yet Mystically if not as it were eminentially too included in this Prayer above The Epistle PHIL. 4. ver 4. c. 4. REjoyce in our Lord alwayes again I say Rejoyce ye 5 Let your modesty be known to all men our Lord is nigh 6. Be nothing carefull but in every thing by Prayer and supplication let your Petitions be known with God 7. And the peace of God which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and intelligences in Christ Jesus The Explication 4. TO Rejoice that they were Christians and had the happiness of true Faith true Hope true Charity This the Apostle meant by rejoycing in our Lord in his holy gifts of Spirit bestowed upon them not that he had made them noble rich or great Persons but religious Christians for this he bids them alwayes rejoyce in our Lord again and again rejoyce And when he said always he meant as well in affliction as in prosperity because to zealous Souls no humane trouble ought to be disturbing so long as they have the comfort of a good Cause and a good Conscience too 5. Modesty is a vertue giving a mean to all the actions of a man and therefore that we might see Christianity sets all things in order both with the inward and outward man the Apostle exhorts the Philippians to give a proof of their perfection in Christianity by their Modesty and by such a modesty as might be known to all men such a modesty as puts a gracefull blush upon all their actions lest any one might see the infirmity of man in him who was become more than man by beeing a true and perfect Christian and therefore S. Paul tels us here we should stand upon a modest guard because our Lord who is to be our Judge is nigh and hath his eyes upon us as needs he must when he gives us the concourse of his Divine Assistance towards our each thought and deed but our Lords being nigh may now in Advent be applyed to the Nativity of our Saviour and for this purpose holy Church appoints that place of Scripture to be read to day though litterally the Text alludes to the latter day of Doom 6. By Care is here meant Anxiety or trouble of minde not that he prohibits a diligence a due regard to doe what is on our parts to be done but beyond that he will not have us goe he forbids us all anxious sollicitude and recommends a perfect resignation of our selves to the will and pleasure of Almighty God And though he bids us have a care to pray upon all occasions as well of Prosperity as of Adversity yet he allowes not any sollicitous care in us about the effect of our Prayer whether we obtain our requests or not made unto God by Prayer but will have us leave that freely to his Divine Majesty for indeed Beggars who want all things must not choose what supply they will first receive but humbly accept of whatsoever is given and if denyed they may ask again but never must be troubled when they are refused nor is our Prayer to God other than an expression of our despicable beggery and exigence of all necessaries both for Body and Soul and since from him we receive all our supplyes what hand soever it be that gives relief to him must our Prayer to him our Supplication to him our thanks and for his sake to those that are his Messengers his Ministers of help unto us and then we glorifie him when we thank them by whom he hands his Blessings to us 7. By the peace of God we may here understand either that increated peace which is God himself whereof peaceable creatures participate or the peace which Christ made between God and Man by his passion appeasing the Divine Wrath or the peace which we make among our selves when we forgive each other our Offences or the peace we have within our selves of a quiet Conscience for all and every one of these are truly called the Peace of God And yet when the Apostle sayes That peace which passeth all understanding he seemes to incline to the first and last acception of Peace for as that surpasseth the understanding of Angels so this is indeed past all humane understanding to know how unquiet man can attain the happiness of that peace which a quiet conscience affords him since it calmes all the tempests of outward persecution and trouble and makes a man by the equality of his mind equally to bear all unequalls whatsoever can befall him keeping our hearts our wills and our Intelligences our understandings still sixt upon Almighty God still adhering unto him and united to his sacred Son our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ The Application 1. IN the first Verse of this Epistle we are taught how to comport our selves towards God Alwayes rejoicing in him to bear even the afflictions of this world with a contented mind So Saint Paul Rom. 5. We glory even in our tribulations and glory we cannot in any thing that gives us not content that doth not joy our hearts for the momentary tribulations of this world born with patience secure us of eternall consolations in the next Whence the same Apostle Cor. 6. sayes As it were sad yet alwayes rejoicing because in our patient suffering we serve and glorifie The God of all consolation 2. In the second Verse see how we are to demean our selves towards our neighbour Modestly ever because our Lord is nigh As who should say we can never look upon our Neighbour but as on our fellow servant holding up the hanging to let our common Master in to us that followes
Transformation that is Transition or passing out of the old figure of Sinners into the new form of Saints and besides St. Paul recommends the forme of newnesse unto us to shew he desires not so much our innovation as our reformation that is not to have us become new creatures in nature but reformed ones in grace such as by newnesse of the Spirit cast off the Antiquity of flesh and bloud or such as by new grace reform old nature for Antiquity in the holy Story of man reports to old Adam to originall sin sicknesse and death the effects thereof but newnesse relates to Christ renewing the decay of old Adam in us by the spritely or youthfull grace of God and this newnesse of mind the Apostle requires as a meanes to know and prove what the good acceptable and perfect will of God is for by proof is here meant experimentall knowledge of the aforesaid wills and without this newnesse we can have no notion thereof for the old man in us makes us sensible of nothing at all that reports in the least to God all the means we have to come unto this knowledge of his will is by reforming our selves in the newnesse of our Spirit that so we may know the will of a Spirit and not remain in the ignorance of an unknowing body or corporall man who knows nothing at all of God The best acception of this place is when by will we understand the things willed or desired as who should say the good will of God is that which makes us desire to doe in all things what is good at least his acceptable will is that which causeth us to doe what is yet better his perfect will is that which moves us to doe to our powers what we judge ever to be best But we are to note the Apostle here speaks of the will of sign precept or counsell which God hath given us to doe good by or rather to be our rule of knowing when we doe well but not of the will of his absolute divine pleasure for that is so necessary as nothing can be done against it that is to say nothing can be done otherwise than as God is pleased it shall be but the Apostle here thus explicates himself about these three Wills describing the good will from the 3d to the 6th verse of this Chapter to consist in being soberly wise and to proceed according to the measure of grace given us by God each in our calling The acceptable he describes from the 9th verse to the 16th verse making that to consist in a sincere cordiall affection in a servent strong and liberall love to our neighbours The perfect from the 16th verse to the end of the Chapter he sayes consisteth in a perfect love mixt with so much humility as makes us condescend to love even our enemies and doe good to them though they requite us again with ill offices done to us 3. St Paul here professeth his knowledge of spirituall things not to be otherwise in him then by the speciall grace of God given him to know thus much as he doth yet it is most probable be alluded to the particular grace of his Apostolate which gave him the science to distinguish spirits and that he professeth to doe in these three gradations of the will divine which here hee makes and if in this place we understand grace for power given unto him to instruct them by office as he was an Apostle it might so taken bee no wrested sense By bidding us not to bee more wise than becomes he adviseth mediocrity in all proceedings and disswades from excess or extreams in any kinde since even at the extremity of vertue vice attends or hee may forbid curiosities in points of Faith such as brinke upon heresie when they are too far strained Or lastly he may forbid in these words pride and vain glory or self-conceit in men of their own ablities when they value themselves at a higher rate than others doe or then indeed they can deserve For this is to be wiser than they ought this is not to be soberly but impudently wise Hee sayes further That every one should proceed according as God hath divided the measure of Faith that is to say according as God hath given his severall gifts for imbellishment unto the true Faith of Christ or as graces thereunto belonging but so as they must be gratis given and as certain Testimonies of the true Faith Such were the gifts of tongues of prophecie of discretion of Spirits of Interpretation of Scripture of teaching of ministery and the like 1 Cor. 12. v. 10. and while any one had received these gratuit gifts as measures of his Faith or as Testimonies that he was a true Christian the Apostle adviseth him to rest there and not to undertake teaching if he were but gifted to the ministery nor discernment of spirits if he had onely the gift of tongues and so of the rest 4 5. These two next Verses illustrate this to bee the genuine sense of the former measure of Faith by the analogie between the members of a naturall and a mysticall bodie for as in the naturall body it were absurd if the hand should undertake to speak or the tongue to reach what meat the body expected the hand to bring unto the mouth so were it for one member of the mysticall body to execute the office and function of another as for the Clark to teach and the Doctor to play the Clarks part since these are spiritually tyed together for severall spirituall uses and operations as the members of the naturall body are corporally tyed to make one entire thing consisting of severall members and the spirituall tye or union of the Mysticall members are interiourly invisible as Faith and Grace exteriourly visible as the Sacraments of holy Church for by these the whole body mysticall is compacted and set together unto Christ their now invisible and to the Pope S. Peters successour their now visible Head and as no corporall member onely serves it self but is a fellow-servant both with and to the other members of the naturall body for example the hand serves the mouth with meats the mouth the stomack the stomack digests all into nutriment for the whole body So every Christian must be a servant not onely to Christ the Head but even to every soul that beleiving in Christ is a member of his Mysticall bodie the Church as well as we and this were to bee perfect members unto Christ when we were ready to serve one another in order to his service to Gods honour and glory this were to follow the Apostles counsel close of being members to one another that is serving one anothers particular necessities as well as those of our common body the Church united to Christ her Head The Application 1. NO marvell if last sundayes Infants bee to day required to offer up their Reasonable services to Almighty God for as Faith elevateth Reason so Hope and Charity subject
of the holy Altar and the touch of all their Omnipotent Powers in the Sacrament of Confession See now Beloved how aptly we doe pray to Day to have the Right-hand of the Divine Majesty extended over our infirmity when the Preachers tell us by the touch of the Deity we are cured of all Diseases On the fourth Sunday after the EPIPHANY The Antiphon MAT. 8. ver 25. O Lord save us we perish Command and cause O God tranquilitie Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer O God who knowest us to be set in so great dangers that we cannot through humane frailty subsist grant unto us health of minde and body that what we suffer for our Sins thou helping us we may overcome The Illustration THe last Sundayes Prayer exhibited the horrour of sin unto us under the notion of diseases This of dangers which we finde so great and wherein we are so openly set that humane frailty considered wee are not able to subsist And therefore against these extrinsecall dangers we beg of God this day as an intrinsecall Protectrice health at least of body and of mind that since in punishment for our sins wee must suffer to be thus exposed to dangers we may be able Gods holy grace assisting us to overcome them This may suffice to render unto every soul the sense of this delicious prayer what remains will be to shew how apposite it is to the Epistle and Gospel of the day which Two are generally allowed to have a pious report to one another and consequently if the prayer be set to the tune of either it must agree with both by the undeniable rule of Schools When any two things are one and the same with a third they must both be so with one another but here the Prayer agrees cleerly enough with the Gospel therefore it cannot be discordant to the Epistle and indeed what more pat to the Gospel relating th Apostles dangers in a tempest at Sea than this prayer altogether deprecating dangers so the difficulty will be to make a harmony between the Epistle and it wherein there is no sillable of danger openly expressed and yet upon reflection we shall find regard enough to danger therein for first the grand Pellitorie the most potent repeller of all dangers meets us in the Van of this Epistle Love whereof S. Paul sayes It is the chaser of all fears out of doors and consequently must needs bee free from all dangers which ever inforce fears upon us timorous Leverets of corrupted nature but further see a prohibition palpable in our eyes in the next Verse of this Epistle Thou shalt not commit Adultery and prohibitions are ever opposites to dangers indeed preventers of them so 't is a sign the Epistle hath regard enough to those dangers which the Prayer deprecates but the last verse comes home to this sense telling us The love of our neighbour worketh no evill that is no danger for evils are the greatest of all other dangers therefore love is the best buckler against dangers in regard it is the fulnesse of the Law which is never made but to prevent the dangers we incurre by the prevarication thereof For to the Iust there is no Law put 1 Tim. 1.9 And thus wee see from first to last a totall exhausting of the Epistle and Gospel by the admirable Piety of this dayes Prayer The Epistle ROM 13. vers 8. c. 8. OWe no man any thing but that you love one another For he that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the Law 9. For Thou shalt not commit advoutry Thou shalt not kill Thou shalt not steal Thou shalt not bear false witness Thou shalt not covet and if there be any other Commandment it is comprized in this word Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self 10. The Love of thy neighbour worketh no evill Love therefore is the fulness of the Law The Explication 8. SOme misunderstand this place as if it did argue obligation to pay the debt of Love but that all other debts were with all speed to be payd whereas in very truth the sence of this place is quite otherwayes and imports as much as if the Apostle had said what other debts soever you are able to discharge yet never esteem your selfe quit from the debt of Love which you must alwayes owe unto your neighbour though you clear all other accounts debts or scores with him because when this debt in part is payd it inflames the reckoning for the part behind just as fire being blâ—wn or made use of doth more and more enkindle whereas if rak't up in the ashes it soon dies So the more we use charity the more we enkindle and increase it therefore the Apostle saies well that we can never be out of this debt to our neighbour since if we pay him the Love we owe unto him for this day to morrow we shall find our debt of Love inflamed and and grown greater by the very agitation of that divine fire which is the mutuall Love of one another To which purpose S. Augustine Epist 62. ad Coelestin hath an excellent saying SEMPER DEBEO CHARITATEM QUAE SOLA c. Love I must alwaies owe which of all debts though payd yet still keeps a man in bonds And againe CHARITATEM LIBENS REDDO c. I do willingly pay Love and as willingly take it in payment it is a thing which when received I count not my self fully satisfied nor when I repay it discharged Hence we may see how absurdly the Anabaptists and Trinitarians Heresy exploded by this Text all debts of Justice and onely required the debt of Love to stand due for if Charity oblige to doe ultroneous and voluntary good deeds how much more to do Justice but so perfect a payment of all debts is commanded by this place as we see the Apostle saies Who loveth his neighbour fulfilleth the Law because we cannot love him but we must love God for himself and man for God's sake as we love our selves 9. And to confute further the Heresy above mentioned see how this whole verse insists upon Acts of Justice to our neighbour rooted in the commanded Love to them aforesayd Whence some conceive the Apostle alludes onely to the law of the Second Table because here is no mention of any one of the three precepts belonging to the First Table importing our duty to God but S. Austin contends that the love of man being but subordinate to the love of God 1 John 4. v. 7. imports and includes both grounded on those words of S. John Children love one another repeated over and over againe to his friends and being asked why he did so he replied because it is the Precept of our Lord and if this alone be done it is sufficient For our love to God and man is like the lines drawn from the Center to their Circumference be the Center God the Circle man the Lines our affections see then how they
to supplant their neighbour and to reâ—r their own monuments upon anothers ruine As for pardoning it was esteemed folly by them who thought revenge the sweetest thing in nature and as for our Lord God they so little knew him that his pardoning nature was no motive to their vindicative dispositions which yet Christians that know God and beleeve that in his sacred Son he hath pardoned the offences of the whole world cannot pretend but must as taught by him or pardon others or not hope for pardon of their own sins 14. But above all that is to say it sufficeth not for a Christian to forgive an enemy but he must also love him too for Charity is the band of perfection not onely the life of every Vertue but the link that chaineth them together and binds them all up in one bundle to make a present of them to Almighty God as of so many particulars necessary to make one accomplisht Soul nay not only binding up all vertues together in one man but also uniting all men together as making so many members to integrate one Mysticall Body of Christ his holy Church so that no one Vertue can subsist alone without the help of another to support it For instance modesty is lost unless patience help to bear it self modestly against those who are injurious againe Patience cannot subsist without Humility inabling us to bear patiently the proud comportment of others and their provocations to impatience and the like is of all Vertues whatsoever for we shall find no one can stand alone without it lean upon another but this is singular in Charity that she is not necessary as a particular support to any single Vertue but is further the common Soul or life unto them all insomuch that without Charity there can be no Vertue at all in any Soul For as Saint Paul sayes 1 Cor. 13. If I have Faith to remove Mountaines if I speak with the tongues of Angels and have no Charity I am become as sounding Brass and a tinkling Cymbâ—ll making a noise but no Harmony nor Musick in the hearing of Almighty God and here the same Apostle calls Charity the band of all Vertues thereby to shew us we are but loose Christians unless tyed up together in the Band of Charity whereby we are made to love God above all things and our neighbour as our selves and in so doing are by this Band of perfection rendred perfect Christians Chosen holy and Beloved children of Christ Iesus 15. Out of this mutuall love followes an effect of peace which is here recommendeâ— to us in no less degree than it was in our Saviours own heart even that similitudinarily not identically which Christ had with the Jewes when on the Cross he besought his Father to be at peace with his enemies that peace and no less the Apost e desires should exult he would say abound in our hearts too his meaning is we should rather recede from our own rights than seek to recover them by losing the peace and quiet of our minde or then be at variance with any body whatsoever to which purpose Cardinall Bellarmine had an excellent axiome which he was known by saying often upon occasions of disputes or oddes between party and party One ounce of Peace is worth a whole pound of Victory and this Cardinall was not alone of this opinion for Saint Austine sure taught it him in his twelfth Sermon upon this verse of the Apostle where he speaks thus I will not have with whom to strive it is much more desireable to have no enemy than to overcome him But the Apostles sense in this place is yet deeper for he so recommends peace unto us as he leaves it for the commandant in our Hearts the ruler of them and of all our actions indeed the crown of them besides as who should say what ere you doe see it be peaceably done see you may after it is past say you have thereby made no breach of peace either in your own or your neighbours minde but that you goe towards God hand in hand with all the world rather following them who siâ— not than by breaking from them though upon your own perhaps better designe cause a disturbance amongst others And indeed if we be at any time necessitated to a war the Christian and reall end thereof being peace argues how much this Vertue is requisite to abound in every pious Soul And eace is here called Christ his Vertue because it was the speciall gift he brought from Heaven when the Angel told us his nativity brought Glory to God above and peace to men of good mindes upon earth Luke 2 ver 1â— and at his parting he left it himself as a legacy amongst us saying immediately before his ascension up to Heaven John 14. ver 27. My peace I leave with you my peace I give to you and for this reason the Apostle sayes We are all called by Christ in one Body that is made up peaceable members one with another of his own sacred and Mysticall Body the holy Church Bee therefore thankfull is the close of this Verse to shew it is a benefit infinitely obliging Christians to receive by Grace so admirable a gift as peace amongst us that are made up by nature of many contradictions not onely externall but internall also though there want not thâ—t instead of thankfull expound this place as to import being gracious or pleasing to each other for so are all peaceable men acceptable to everybody wheresoever they come and truly however the Rhemists translate it Thankfull yet the expositours especially Saint Heirome incline to think gracious to be the more genuine sense of the Apostle in this place 16. True it is by the Word of Christ is here meant as well the written as the preached Word of God but in regard ignorant persons are more apt to misconstrue than rightly to understand the written Word therefore holy Church is sparing to give leave to read the Bible and liberall to advise us to hear it Preached or explicated by the Priests But if it please God we have it once expounded unto us that we may understand it in a safe and sound sense then not to read it will be a fault whereas till then to read it may prove a danger to us and in very truth one reason why I have undertaken to set forth this book was to give the Lay-people a little liberty in reading at least all the Epistles and Gospels throughout the Sundayes of the year when they were laid open to them in a safe sense such as might nay must needs edisie and can no wayes offend or cause dangers to the reader so to read and possesse themselves of thus much Scripture as is here delivered in the flux of a year unto then must needs be highly commendable and hugely profitable unto every one that reads and makes it their study indeed their Prayer from one end of the year to the other for so shall they have
supernaturall propensions by hearing the most elevating Word of God Symbolically Saint Hilary sayes This leaven of the Gospell was hid in the three measures of meal the Law the Psalmes and the Prophets and now appears in the Trinity of the three Theologicall Vertues Faith Hope and Charity or as others will have it to the three sorts of Believers Beginners Proficients and Perfect who bring forth loaves of fruit swollen to these correspondent proportions of Thirty Sixty or an Hundred fold increase of bigness Allegorically Saint Bernard makes the wombe of the Blessed Virgin Mother of Christ to be the leaven of the Hypostaticall union having a seasoning influence into the three parts of Christ his Soul his Body his Divinity uniting them all in one Person or one loaf made of these three measures of meal as above Anagogically Caesarius Dial. 4. Sayes the woman is the divine wisdome or deity of Christ the three measures oâ— meal are all humane natures death and hell and the leaven Christs humanity hid in his grave and in hell whither his humane soul went with his deity seasoning all mankind into the blessed condition of a resurrection from death and purgatory to life eternall in everlasting glory 34 35. There is no more mystery in these two verses than litterally they sound onely this we may observe that as all the whole 77 Psalme of David is a kind of parabolicall or aenigmaticall grave sententious speech because in that psalme he speakes prophetically of this manner of parabolicall speech of Christ therefore to verifie that prophesie Christ here speakes both in grave and truely parabolicall senses though David have much of litterall sence in his said psalme as where he recounts the Benefits God bestowed on the Synagogue or children of Israel in their forty years march with Moses through the red sea and the desert from Aegypt to Canaan the land of promise yet S. Hierome saies that David the type of Christ speakes there mystically as in Christs person promising to his Church infinite blessings namely to man passing through the red sea of his passion and through the desert of this world into the heavenly Canaan or promised land of Glory And for that purpose Christ here ends his parabolical discourse with this second verse of that 77 Psalme of the royall Prophet David I will open my mouth in parables I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world The Application 1. AS it was reason Christ should speak in Parables to verifie what was prophecied of him according to the last Verse in this Gospell so with those Parables he is said with great reason doubtless To utter things hidden from the foundation of the World we may suppose the hidden Mysteries of the Blessed Trinity and of the Incarnation in particular and in generall the workes of Faith whereof Saint Paul in this dayes Epistle mindes the Thessalonians and in them all after Believers For it was indeed the main business our Saviour had to doe upon Earth to plant a Faith in mens mindes whereby they might work out their salvation Hope and Charity assisting the said work of Faith as Saint Paul above cited sayes 2. As it was reason Christ should verifie the Prophets sayings of him so was it reason he should draw the Ignorant multitude to a belief of the greatest Mysteries of Faith by degrees as he did in first speaking Parables and then expounding of them by his Apostles at least in so rationall a way that they easily took all he said for good when they had heard good sense to be wrapt up in his Parabolicall speeches which at first they understood not so what seemed to be spoken to blind their understandings was indeed intended to open them and thus did Christ reasonably condescend when he seemed most unreasonably to transcend the capacities of the People 3. As the Mustard seed of Divine Faith and the leaven of Christian Doctrine have seasoned the whole world with Christianity so is it great reason they being both received into our hearts should in such sort season the little world we are within our selves that all our actions may be answerable to those hidden roots of Religion planted in our hearts as then they will bee when our thoughts are alwayes meditating upon those Christian Duties which in reason we are alwayes bound unto And that we may doe this the Church reasonably prayes to day as above On SEPTUAGESIMA Sunday The Antiphon MAT. 20. ver 6. THe housholder said unto his workmen What stand you here all the day idle but they answering said Because no man hath hired us Goe ye also into my Vineyard and what shall be just I will give you Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer VVEe beseech thee O Lord clemently to hear the Prayers of thy People that we who for our sinnes are justly punished for the Glory of thy Name may be mercifully delivered The Illustration WEe were in the fourth Sunday after the Epiphany taught to pray much to this purpose but we must not think much of repeating the same Prayer when we dayly repeat the same Sins which are the cause of our increased punishments yet we shall finde that danger was there the punishment we deprecated here it is labour either in the race we are by the Epistle bid to run or in the paines the Gospell calls us too in the Vineyard of Christ as if we were hereby given to understand our life in this world is a continuall toil and labour to deserve an eternall rest in the next But further we are to note this Prayer is particularly proper to this day not onely as referring literally in a manner to the Epistle and Gospell but even to the whole Series of holy Churches service upon this Septuagesima Sunday when the Priest in his office is bid begin the story of Genesis thereby to minde us we should from this day begin to serve God as if we were but newly created for that purpose and yet lest we should forget that we were no sooner created than we had by sin annihilated as it were our selves and lost our right of return to that All-being the Creator of Heaven and Earth from whence we came out of our nothing See the Prayer of this Day puts us in minde of our degenerating from God by Sin But withall of our return to him by Repentance if we cooperate with his holy Grace who is ever more ready to give than we are to ask him Pardon Now in regard the Epistle of this day falls from the simile between a Christians life and those who runn a race and mindes us of the Children of Israels going out of Aegypt into the Land of promise of the Cloud and of the Red Sea wherein they were by Moses as it were Baptized as also the Rock which followed them to quench their Thirst and of the Manna from Heaven to be their Food we must observe that this Story
the soule or understanding but first it must passe the sentinels of our outward sences and they if loyall will keep out all sinne whatsoever but if corrupted or treacherous to their sovereigne the soule then they welcome any traytour sent by the world or the devill to surprize their Prince and indeed all resistance to forreigne enemies is vayne if we first subdue not our domestick foe our own bodies by forcing them to obey the commands of reason for unlâ—sse we bring them first to this obedience all our resistance to sinne is like artilery let flye at crowes in the ayre when an army of daring men are ready to run into the mouthes of our Cannon and might be taken off if levelld at whilest our bullets fly in vaine above their heads by a mismounting our Artillery that is to say by roaring and crying out against the distantiall world and devill when indeed the flesh is the storming foe that scales our walls unresisted at the same time we pretend a maine resistance to our mightiest foes this fond way of fight the Apostle tells us of when he shewes his own close guard to be the safer defence namely the chastizement of his own body and if we aske what that chastizement imports we shall find it to be not onely a correction or slight rebuke but an absolute subduing or captivating of it to the soules command by fasting prayer and other corporall austerities as haire-shirts disciplines or worse tormenting instruments such as holy men have taught us the wholsome use of upon all notable occasions of temptations or dangers to the soule nay these meanes the Apostle used amidst his greatest spirituall labours least as he sayd while he preached to others he might himself become reprobate by the assault of pride or vain-glory how much more then oght those to mortifie their bodies who do not wast them in spirituall indeavours as S Paul did but above all how fondly do Hereticks shake off the use of corporal mortifications the exercise of good works under pretence of Faith alone to be sufficient when the greatest master of Spirit in the world S. Paul dares not hold himself by Faith secure without good works much lesse did he boast as they doe of a revelation that he should be saved noe nor relye upon his being confirmed in grace but wrought his salvation with feare and trembling which did accompany his hope not his presumption thereof Heare Saint Ambrose how he speaks against hereticks opposing this doctrine and practise of Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Vercellan Church I hear saith this Doctor-Father some men say there is no merit of abstinence and that those are mad who chastize their bodies to make them subject to their soules which certainly Saint Paul had never done if he had held it to be madnesse To the same effect all the rest of the Fathers abound with like sentences which for brevity sake I omit to transcribe but not to admonish the Christian reader of especially the hereticks whom it most concernes I say not who they be least I offend persons while I onely oppose their errors cut of charity to them and zeale of their soules salvation Cap. 10. vers 1. Here the Apostle seems to divert from the Corinthians to the Jewes but indeed makes this seeming diversion an approach to them againe whilest he puts them in mind that it is not onely Faith with Abraham nor to be baptized with Christians will suffice to get the goale of heaven unlesse we run continually thither upon the speed of our perpetuall good works for saith he I will not have you ignorant that our Fathers namely the children of the Synagogue the Israelites wanted not Faith nor the figurative Baptisme of the cloud and the red Sea types of our true Baptisme yet because they did murmur at God and sinne in the desart deserting thereby the necessary adjunct of good works to merit their arrivall at the land of promise of six hundred thousand onely two men Joshua and Caleb did arrive at and enter the said land In like manner Christians be they never so firme in their Faith never so deepely dipt in the true Baptisme of the red sea of Christs passion unlesse they hold on the speed of good works while they are running the race to the heavenly Canaanâ— they shall never enter that heavenly land of promise which is the price they runne for But we are here to note how Calvin corrupts this place of S. Paul saying the Jewes received no lesse the truth and substance of Christ and his benefits in their umbratile and figurative Sacraments onely than we Christians do in our reall Sacraments which are the true substance of the Jewish shadowes For the Apostle doth not say they and we eat all one meate but that all they among themselves did eat of the figurative body of Christ the Manna in their desart raining down upon them and drank of his figurative bloud the waters flowing out of the rock strucken by Moses as a Type of the bloud and water the matter of our truer meates issuing out of our Saviours side peirced by Longinus as Jesus hung upon the crosse The cloud here mentioned is that we read of Exod. 13. shadowing them in the day from the scorching Sun and shining like fire to guide them in their nightly marches through the desarts as prodigious a thing as was the division of the red-sea by the switch of Moses his wand as he marched on before them 2. Note this verse doth not assert the Jewes to have been baptized in Moses as in a signe of their beliefe in the Mosaick Law but that by this precedent miraculous kind of Baptisme they were induced afterwards to believe in the â—aw of Moses so in this the figure differs from the thing figured for though this their umbratil Baptisme previous to their Faith be a Type of our true Baptisme yet our Faith in Christ is precedent thereto whereas the Jewish Faith was consequent to their shadow of baptisme And whereas the divided sea stood as two brasse walls to secure the children of Israel a dry passage through the wet element of the waves yet joyned againe to overwhelme the Aegyptian forces that presumed to persecute the children of God so the red sea of Christs passion divides it self to secure the children of grace but closeth to drown the children of the devill originall sinne in infants originall and actuall too in the adult being those who are at years of discretion As therefore our Baptisme is the thing praefigured by this divided sea so Christ is by Moses so the holy Ghost by the cloud cooling the scorching sun of concupiscence in us and inlightening our darkned soules by his holy Grace 3. We were told in the exposition of the first verse of this Chapter that they did all eat the same figurative food onely with us that is Manna wich was a figure of Christs body our spiritual food in the Sacrament of
this Rapture yet Saint Thomas disputing this question purposely to declare the naturall truth determines him to remaine alive because God doth not kill men to honour them by his conversing with them so Saint Thomas concludes his soul was in his Body and consequently resolves that which the Apostle will not determine saying this Rapture was when Saint Pauls Soul was in his Body whence he was alive though he did not know so much But many doubt what this Third Heaven meanes unto which the Apostle was elevated but the common consent runs to affirm he was carryed up even to the Empyreall Heaven the highest of all that where God shews himself in his greatest glory and concludes this is called the third not as to averr there are but three heavens in all but as to include all be there never so many by the briefest way which is by saying three for all Yet the common division of the heavens into Aereall Aethereall and Empyreall will serve literally to this Text making the ayre the first heaven so birds are called the Inhabitants of Heaven The second the Aethereall which includes all the voluble Orbs above us and the Empyreall to be that of the Blessed to which last understand the rapture of S. Paul to have been The greatest doubt is whether he were rapt both bodie and soul up so high some think no and that this rapture may bee understood to be imaginary onely or Intellectuall wherein he had a revelation or vision of stranger things than were lawfull for him to speak or then were in his power to utter if it had been lawfull and this they ground out of the 1. verse of this Chapter and out of the 17. both which mention visions yet it is much more probable that he was really rapt both soul and bodie First because it was as easie for God to doe both as one Secondly because the Apostle doubts whether it were so or not as we see in this second and third Verse where he professeth not to know which in his sense is to doubt whereas those who have visions or revelations doe not doubt but know they are upon earth for all those Visions which onely make a rapture of the soul but none of the bodie so it is probable as Moses went corporally up to the mount Sinai where he was rapt out of the sight of the people by interposition of a cloud snatching him from their eyes and had delivered into his corporall ears the words of the Law in like manner Saint Paul who was to be the heavenly Doctor of all nations had corporally delivered to him such secret words as he mentions even in Paradise to have received and thence to bring back to earth such a Magazine of spirituall commands as he hath filled the whole world withall though he neither have told nor could tell all hee heard and therefore S. Paul after he had spoken of the third heaven adds the mention of Paradise to shew he was rapt not onely in his understanding but also in his will above the pitch of nature and even into that place of heaven which is therefore called Paradise because it ravisheth the wills of the Blessed with an infinite delight of loving as well as of seeing and understanding God So Divines allow in the vast Empyreall heaven a kinde of place apart called Paradise for the variety of pleasure it affords And hither they allow S. Paul to be rapt yet doe they not therefore say he did see God face to face as the blessed souls there inhabiting doe because he was not to remain there with them yet S. Thomas and other Divines thinke it probable he might have a transient sight thereof 2 secundae q. 175. a 5. but more probably it was not so since to Moses was onely granted to see the back of the Angell representing God and since 1 Tim. 6. v. 16. we read No man ever did see God that is to say with corporall eyes as here the Apostle was corporally rapt For if of the Angel it were said in Gods name to Moses No man shall see me and live how much more probable is it that Paul living after this rapture did not see God himself though no man doubts but he might see the glory of Christ and not unlikely heard from his own glorious mouth those secrets which he could not utter however to render his calling or Apostolate undoubted he had it conferred upon him personally by our Saviour in heaven as he upon earth did personally call the rest of his Apostles to his Service Of this Gal. 1. v. 12. the Apostle makes mention saying Christ revealed unto him the doctrine that he preached and then most probably was this Revelation made when he therewith revealed his glory too and those secrets he speaks of here may be partly certain Attributes of the Deitie assuredly the Ranks and Orders of Angels and their natures which S. Dennis seems to have drawn more particulars of from the Apâ—stle than himself utters in his own enumeration of their nine Orders and therefore in his celestiall Hierarchy S. Dennis this Apostles Disciple tells us of higher matters belonging to the holy Angels than ever any man else durst venture on Lastly we may piously believe S. Paul had told unto him by Christ in this rapture much of the course of divine providence in governing the world especially the holy Church much of the conversions of nations by himself and the rest of the Apostles which his modesty would not permit him to boast of 5. â—ee how he distinguisheth himself rapt from himself in the ordinary condition of man even as if he were not the same man for of him that was rapt hee proâ—esseth to glory still in the sense as above not vainly but of him that was not rapt he boasteth not at least not in this place to shew how great a difference there was between his rapt and not rapt condition and therefore as of his usuall self he boasts onely that he is infirm namely that he is lyable to affliction and miseries which are â—nconsistent with the state of rapt creatures for their rapture exempts them from the pain of sense and so from grief or pain which is meant here by infirmity as it is when our Saviour is called the man of griefes by Isaiah cap. 53 v. 3. which he explicates by adding these words Knowing infirmity that is to say lyable to all torture misery or pain 6. We read in the Acts cap 14. v. 10. that the Lycaonians held Paul and Barnabas for Gods To avoid vain-glory in this hee tells them he will not be understood above what he is above a man lyable to all misery and persecution which gods are exempted from nay lest they should thinke him an Angell though not god he speaks sparingly of those prerogatives of his rapture An excellent example for them to follow who are indeed nothing extraordinary and not boast themselves as more than ordinary men which yet
the meanest often doe 7. Further he proceeds to tell them he fears even himself as man lyable to the titillation of vain-glory and therefore to quell the rising of that rebellion in his own thoughts he confounds himself by declaring how rebellious he found his flesh even after he had the honour of this high rapture Note this rebellion of the flesh as given that is permitted to molest him by God intending thence to increase his merit by his humiliation not by the devill who intendeth alwayes thereby to tempt and destroy though God permitted the devill to make use by his temptation hereupon to bring Paul to carnality as he permitted him and therefore it must not be held immodesty to take this place in the right sense as explicating the Apostles affliction of body in this kinde â—o gain him the greater merit of grace and glory thereby For thus the Fathers understand S. Paul to call the buffeting of Satan that is the Devils raising in him this perpetuall rebellion of his flesh against his Spirit though his corporall labours in the vineyard of Christ were such as render'd his body little able to perform acts of lust First because the Apostle calls it here the sting of his flesh though he attributes it as a true effect to its true cause and therefore stiles it the Devils flail beating or buffering him continually Secondly because hee often complains of his carnall concupiscence molesting him especially Rom. 7.13 where he sayes it torments him as much as all his other persecutions and to quell this he tells us 1 Cor. 9. he doth chastise his bodie Thirdly because there is nothing can so truly humble a true Saintly spirit as this base temptation or rebellion of the flesh can doe which pulls men into the puddle of corruption as envying their happiness by rising up to the Paradise of immortality and glory Fourthly because these temptations doe not properly hurt pure soules but onely dminister matter of their better advantaging themselvas by shewing the power that a soule well ordered hatheto subdue all rebellion of the body lastly 8. By the Apostles professing he did three times pray to be delivered from this molestation for as by the number of three we heard before is included all number so by the trine repetition of prayer to this effect we conceive he meanes his alwaies praying to be eased of it and was answered it should not hurt him being as he was supported by the grace of God against it God dealing with Paul in this as Physitians do with patients calling to take off tormenting plaisters from them that is not reguarding their call to this purpose as knowing the paine that troubles them will be the cure of their disease against which the painful plaister was applied so was this of carnall concupiscence against the spirituall pride S. Paul might else have been transported with had not this humbling trouble kept him free from so dangerous a sinne as pride and vaine-glory 9. And that this was the true reason see what followes the more infirme man is the more power God shewes by his grace killing sinne in man by this power is understood his virtue overcoming the Apostles infirmity as importing carnall intemperance for these were the words of Christ denying Pauls request to be eased of his corporall infirmity his carnall temptation saying to him that as his Grace sufficeth for a remedy against all such temptations so his Virtue which in it selfe was alwaies perfect did appeare in us to be perfected when it had power to cure our like infirmities that is so to qualify them as though they remained in our bodies they should not hurt our soules but still the resisting soule should grow better however the suffering body seemed to grow worse by the perpetuall combate Note diverse do diversly expound this place some say it is also verified when any other heroick Acts of virtue are produced by weak men as well as those of Temperance Continence Chastity others when being conscious of our own infirmity we render the glory of all we doe to God others that the true subject whereon virtue workes is weaknesse to corrobotate what is infirme others that experience of often harme by such and such things makes weak men strong and able to refraine from what hurts them and so to make weaknesse the perfecter of their fortitude lastly S. Hierome to Ciâ—sephontes saies this is the onely perfection of the present life that thou acknowledge thy self imperfect wherefore S Paul concludes that he willingly and joyfully gloryes in his infirmities as in withdrawing roomes to the virtue of Christ which delights to be and dwell where infirmity is as the Apostle here tels us 10. And in the next verse of this Chapter he tells us he meanes by infirmity pleasing himself as he saies in his infirmities contumelies necessities persecutions and distresses for Christ concluding that when in any of these kinds he is weak then he is mighty meaning wheâ— weak in body he is strong in mind or virtue when weak in man he is mighty in Christ for whose sake he glories and pleaseth himselfe to become weake and if we will take S. Bernards opinion by the virtue which was perfected in infirmi y he will tell us it was humility and that this was the speciall virtue Christ recommended to his Apostles saying learn of me because I am meek and humble of heart Matth. 11. vers 29. So indeed the Apostle ends his boasting Chapter with his chiefest glory in his infirmity in his humility and conceives he shall best quell the pride â—f his Antagonists the false Apostles by leaving them to vaunt in flesh and bloud in their greatness while he glories in his pressures in his imprisonments in his whippings in his carnall temptations as having overcome all these by the virtue of Christ that is by humility in stooping patiently to the pressure of all these The Application 1. BLessed God! must we runne digge delve and plow all dayes of our life and that upon our masters ground nay in his own Vineyard too and must we yet lye open unto danger while we toyle is our ease damnable so last sunday told us and our labour dangerous so we are told to day 2. For what we read befell S. Paul we may be sure hangs also over us Danger here danger there and consequently danger every where If we doe ill 't is damnable to us if we doe well t is odious unto those that persecute us for so doing 3. Nay if we fly to heaven it self in heavenly contemplation yet the danger doth not cease so long as we are living here on earth S. Paul was there and after that he had the Divell at his back to pluck him down to hell nay his own flesh rebelled against him too so 't is with us what remedy But that we pray as holy Church appoints and that we hope so praying to obtain the help he had The Grace that maugre danger
Octave of the Epiphanie The Prayer VVEe beseech thee O Lord prosecute with heavenly Piety the desires of thy suppliant people that they may both see what is by them to be done and be able to perform what they see they are to doe The Secret GRant O Lord that this Sacrifice offered unto thee may quicken alwayes and defend us The Post-Communion VVEe humbly beseech thee Omnipotent God that whom thou hast with thy Sacraments refreshed thou wilt gratiously grant they may serve thee with an agreeable comportment On the second Sunday after the Epiphanie The Prayer ALmighty everlasting God who doest moderate at once both Heavenly and Earthly things hear clemently the Prayers of thy people and grant us thy peace in our times The Secret SAnctifie O Lord our offered gifts and purge us from the spots of our Sinnes The Post-Communion O Lord we beseech thee let the operation of thy vertue be increased in us that nourished by thy Divine Sacraments we may be prepared through thy bounty to receive thy promises On the third Sunday after the EPIPHANIE The Prayer OMnipotent eternall God look we beseech thee propitiously on our infirmity and extend to our protection the right hand of thy Majesty The Secret VVEe pray thee O Lord let this Host cleanse our sins and sanctifie the bodies and soules of thy subjects towards the celebrating of thy sacrifice The Post-Communion TO whom thou doest O Lord grant the use of so great mysteries vouchsafe we beseech thee that we may truly be adopted unto their effects On the fourth Sunday after the EPIPHANIE The Prayer O God who knowest us set in so great dangers that we cannot through humane frailtie subsist gran unto us health of mind and body that what we suffer for our sins thou helping we may overcome The Secret GRant we beseech thee almighty God that the offered gift of this sacrifice may ever purge our frailtie and defend it from all evill The Post-Communion LEt thy gifts O God free us from terrene delights and refresh us alwayes with heavenly food On the fifth Sunday after the Epiphanie The Prayer KEep we beseech thee O Lord thy family in continuall pietie that resting on the onely hope of heavenly grace it may ever by thy protection be defended The Secret WEe offer unto thee O Lord the Host of Pacification and that thou mayest mercifully absolve us from our sins direct our drowsie hearts The Post-Communion WEe beseech thee almightie God that we may have the effect of that safety the pledge whereof we have received by these Mysteries On the sixth Sunday after the Epiphanie The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that alwaies meditating those things which are reasonable we may both in our words and deeds doe what is pleasing unto Thee The Secret LEt this oblation O God cleanse and renew govern and protect us we beseech thee The Post-Communion BEing fed O Lord with heavenly delights we beseech thee that we may alwaies covet those things by which we truly live On SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY The Prayer VVEe beseech thee O Lord clemently to hear the Prayers of thy People that we who for our sins are justly afflicted may for the glory of thy Name be mercifully delivered The Secret THou having received our gifts O Lord and our prayers cleanse us with thy heavenly mysteries and hear us clemently we beseech thee The Post-Communion BEe thy faithfull O God strengthened by thy gifts that they may without end knowing seek and seeking know the same On SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY The Prayer O God who seest we confide not in any of our own Actions grant us propitiously that against all adversities we may be armed by the protection of the Doctor of the Gentiles The Secret MAy this sacrifice offered unto thee O Lord alwaies revive and protect us The Post-Communion WEe humbly beseech thee Almighty God to grant that those whom thou doest refresh with thy Sacraments may graciously serve thee with their good behaviour On QUINQUAGESIMA Sunday The Prayer O Lord we beseech thee hear clemently our Prayers and being loosened from the fetters of our sins keep us from all adversity The Secret MAy this oblation O Lord we beseech thee purge away our sins and sanctifie the bodies and souls of thy subjects for the celebrating of this sacrifice The Post-Communion VVEe pray thee O God Omnipotent that we who have received Heavenly food may thereby be guarded from all adversity FINIS The END Of the FIRST PART THE SECOND PART Of the first TOME On the first Sunday in Lent The Antiphon 2 Cor. 6. v. 2 c. BEhold now the acceptable time behold now the dayes of health in these dayes therefore let us exhibite our selves as the Servants of God in much patience in fastings in watchings and in unfeigned charity Vers To his Angels God hath given charge of thee Resp That in all thy wayes they may keepe thee The Prayer O God who doest purifie thy Church with an annuall observation of Lent grant unto thy Family that what it endeavoureth to obtaine of thee by Fasting it may finish the same by good workes The Illustration IF in the holy time of Lent we find not so exact a report between the Epistle Gospell and Prayer of the day as at other times of the yeer it must be given to the more then ordinary regard had unto the Lenten Fast which we shall observe all these Prayers make speciall mention of as if holy Church intended nothing more then a recommends of that wholesome Fast unto us neverthelesse I shall not despaire to find the Epistle and Gospell even like full-sail'd Vessels falling down this channell of holy abstinence and directed by the helme of the Prayer come full fraughted with the same concording Spirits into the Ports of our ever open hearts to Ghostly comforts which the other seasons of the yeare afford unto us But before we venture upon a thing so hard let us facilitate the way by first cleering the full sense of the Prayer for when we know what we aske therein we shall see what relation the Petition hath to the Epistle and Gospell whence we must draw it out Observe then first in this Prayer an acknowledgement that Almighty God doth purifie his Church with an annuall observation of Lent so the end of this Fast is the Churches purification Next see how the Prayer begs that what we endeavour to obtaine by Fasting we may finish by good workes so though purification be the end of our Fast yet the Fast alone is but an endeavour towards that end and nothing brings us home unto it unlesse to the endeavouring fast we adde the finishing help of good works and this with great reason too for as we are never said to be perfectly purified untill we can in a chaste body represent a pure Soule to God so by Fasting alone we onely chastize our bodies but by good workes the grand affaire is finished our Soule is made pure and then the Churches
end is accomplisht then the whole creatures we are become as was intended purified but least I should be thought to state this sense to my own designe let us heare Saint Leo in his Homily upon this day which the Priest reads in his Office tell us his opinion wherein consists the perfection of our Lenten Fasts Not in the sole abstaining from meat consisteth the integrity of our Fast but in the joynt taking away our affections from sinne thus hee and how shall we give better Testimony of our not being sinners then in doing good works such as may make us Saints see here then the Scope of holy Fast is as it were to starve the body and to feed the Soul for in vaine this forbears to eat flesh if that doe not feast upon Spirituall Cates such as are good works of Prayer Almes-deeds and other sorts of vertues especially recommended in this holy time of Lent nor is it without mystery the Prayer to day begges we may finish by good workes what we indeavour only by Fasting our annuall purifications by this Lenten Abstinence since though we have the grace to keep the fast exactly in point of dyet yet in vaine our bodies fast towards purification of the whole creature which we are unlesse our Soules at the same time feast upon vertues by abandoning all vices in this the Prayer to day observes the method of the Epistle in vaine the Ministers of holy Church receive the grace of God unlesse they make use of the acceptable time the dayes of salvation that now are flowing and this by rendring themselves with good workes pleasing to all men offensive to none unlesse to their Fast they adde the good works expressed in the Antiphon above taken out of the same Epistle and many more which those few referre unto from one end of the Epistle to another nor can we say these are counsels proper for Church-men only since those the expositours understand by Helpers in the Ministery of God because the Apostle layes himselfe open to the Corinthians not only as a Minister of God requiring such perfections as this Epistle mentions but as a patterne to the people to imitate so that all the good workes he tells them Churchmen should be perfect in he exhorts lay-men to practise too as if he would have the sheep equal Saints with their shepheards and indeed this is no strained sense of mine for we see holy Church to day exhibits unto us not only Apostolicall perfection in the Epistle but even that of Jesus Christ himselfe the Master of the Apostles when his forty-dayes Fast is set before our eyes in the Gospell and not that Fast alone but withall the addition of his good workes his Watching and his praying his resisting the strongest temptations that the Devill could accost him with now who that seeth this can say there wants sufficient Harmony betweene the preaching and the Praying part of this dayes service and that ample as can be in an abstract of Prayer exhausting two such large Texts as are the Epistle and Gospell of the first Sunday in Lent The Epistle 2 ad Cor. 6. v. 1 c. 1 And we helping doe exhort that you receive not the grace of God in vaine 2 For he saith In time accepted have I heard thee and in the day of Salvation have I holpen thee Behold now is the time acceptable behold now the day of salvation 3 To no man giving offence that our Ministery bee not blamed 4 But in all things let us exhibite our selves as the Ministers of God in much patience in tribulation in neâ—cssities in distresses 5 In Stripes in Prisons in Seditions in Labours in Watchings in Fastings 6 In chastity in knowledge in longanimity in Sweetnesse in the holy Ghost in charity not fained 7 In the word of Truth in the vertue of God by the Armour of Iustice on the right hand and on the left 8 By honour and dishonour by infamy and good fame as Seducers and True as they that are unknown and knowne 9 As dying and behold we live as chastened and not killed 10 As sorrowfull but alwayes rejoycing as needy but inriching many as having nothing and possessing all things The Explication 1. THe Apostles stiling themselvs Helpers in this verse allude to what was said more plainly in the immediate Chapter before to the Corinthians v. 19. where they were told Christ was the true reconciler of the people to God and his Apostles had given unto them by Christ the Ministery of this reconciliation the Administration of the Sacraments whereby we receive the grace of God and so are reconcil'd to him principally by himselfe Secondarily or Ministerially by his Apostles And the like is done by their Successours the Priests of holy Church to which alludes that saying of the Apostle Coloss 1. v. 24. That his Ministery and sufferings for the Faith doth accomplish those things which are wanting of the Passion of Christ not but that Christ did suffer personally all he was to suffer as head of his Church but that hee was yet to suffer more in his Members and even their sufferings he esteemed his own in so much as he gives the Apostle leave to say his and the other sufferings of Christians are supplies even of what was wanting in Christ his passion to shew us how neer and deer our sufferings are to God while he esteemes them as those of his own sacred Sonne and as thus by suffering for Justice all Christians supply what was wanting of Christ his passion so particularly all Priests by their exhortations and administration of the Sacraments are helpers of Christ in the reconciliation of Christians to Almighty God his favour through the grace of the holy Sacraments dispensed to them by the hands of the Priests who onely have this prerogative of reconciliation between God and Man what by their Sacrifices what by their exhortations and Sacraments which are dispensed unto us While the Apostle exhorts us not to receive the grace of God in vain he destroyes the fond doctrine of heretikes who will have grace alone without cooperation on our behalfe to be sufficient whereas out of this very Text the Catholike Church first teacheth that that Gods grace offers no violence to our free will but that it comes so sweet unto us as it is in our powers to reject or receive it as we please and that further we are taught that by our own free act of cooperation and this gratuite grace joyned together we are made gratefull to God whereas if we have never so much grace given us unlesse we doe freely cooperate therewith it is in vaine received as the Apostle sayes here in plaine termes whatsoever Heretikes pretend to the contrary thereby to make a gap open to their lazy liberties perswading themselves Christ hath already saved them and that it boots not what they doe so they have his grace or rather Faith alone without his grace a doctrine diametrically opposite to
the genuine sense of the Apostle in this Text who by grace here understands both the generall benefit of all mankinds redemption or reconciliation to God by Christ his passion and the speciall concourse of holy grace which Christ hath merited for every particular man and which God consequently gives to every one that thereby hee may if he will not in vaine receive it make himselfe an effectuall partaker of the said passion of Christ by cooperating therewith towards his own Salvation whereas otherwise Christ his passion remaines onely sufficient but not effectuall or actually efficatious to every particular mans Salvation 2. This prophesie reports to the second person of the Blessed Trinity thus speaking to his heavenly Father Jsaias 49.8 in the accepted time of his Incarnation and in the saving day of his passion which wrought Salvation to the whole world and when the Apostle tells us that now this acceptable time this day of Salvation is come he meanes the whole time afforded man in this world from the houre of our Saviours Incarnation and passion to the very latter day of doome is all and every minute of it so acceptable so saving that no man can use any the least instant of it in vaine if he please to serve himselfe thereof but may in any time of his whole life in any instant of that whole time by a true conversion of his heart to God and by an aversion of it from sinne save his soule though it were huge presumption in any man that had enough to doe in all his life to overcome his vices and would be so supinely negligent as never to convert his Soule and the affections of his heart to God but at some posting minute when he could no longer injoy the liberty of sinne note also though this be the literall sense of Isaias above yet the mysticall of it is that holy Lent is singled out as the most acceptable time in all the year to work out our Salvation in because we have then the assistance of the whole Church joyntly prostrate with us in Prayer Fasting and Pennance so in case our own indeavours come short yet they may now be carryed on as some men are in crowds being borne up by others when they have no footing of their own to carry them along 3. Here the Apostle seemes to put so much force in the necessity of good life in Christians such as takes off all note of scandall or offence as if all the labour of the Priests were lost unlesse the people did live according to the doctrine of the Church according to the preaching of the Pastours for so he concludes as though their Ministery might be blamed and questioned whether of God or not if the people did not live vertuous lives and without offence because men would be apt to say they were fine teachers fine Masters indeed who breed up such sinfull Scholars as give offence to others 4. And lest the people might pretend it is in vaine for Priests to Preach good life unlesse they also lead the same the Apostle both for this reason and further to let them see they were seduced by following such Preachers as without ordination or Mission tooke upon them that Ministery and did perhaps speake well but doe ill themselves falls tacitly into an Encomiastick of himselfe and of all true Ministers of Gods holy word above what was due to false Ministers by exhorting the people to such good life as they might see example of in him and the rest of the Apostles and Disciples of Christ while he saies let us shew our selves like Ministers of God instructed ordained and sent by him to Preach and lead examples of good life not obtruded upon the world by man pretending Mission and ordination who had none indeed and therefore could not truly be called the Ministers of God as onely the Apostles and their legall successours are all this he means by those words let us live as the Ministers of God then he proceeds to tell the Signes and the Tokens of such or at least the effects commonly following all such true calling ordination or mission that it renders them capable of much patience and lest this vertue should seeme but narrowly communicated by God to his Apostles here is an ampliation of it to all Emergencies or occasions wherein commonly mens patiences are truly tried that so whiles it is not limited to any one occasion or circumstance but extended to all it may appeare to be a mark or an effect of a true Minister of God since it is his gift whose every work is perfect and from this very place to the end of this Epistle the Apostle runs on declaring the marks of a true Minister of God squaring out the excellency and perfection of an Apostolicall man and of his life so that little need more to be said for explaining the verses following now we know they all drive to this end and are spoken in this sense yet now and then I shall observe in each verse something particular when the sense is deeper then it may seem to be at first reading 5. Note in this verse the Apostle exhorts even in persecutions such as was expressed above to use voluntary Mortifications namely Watching and Fasting for they are seldom inflicted as punishments of our Persecutors though even in that sense the hunger of prisons and restless nights thereof caused by the unruly company commonly in such places may also have been glanced at as things the Apostle exhorts to bear patiently 6. Chastity is here of special regard because we see the Ministers of other Churches profess it is not to be of obligation nay they wil have it incompatible with humane Nature and no way possible to be prescribed to Priests or vowed by them So by this particular mark of Chastity the Apostle distinguisheth a true Priest from an usurper of Apostolical Mission and gives this as an eminent splendour in the Catholick Church abounding in many thousands of Priests and Religious persons of both Sexes vowing and most of them doubtless if not all keeping their Vow exactly Knowledge or Science is here of special remark too since it behoves all Priests not onely to know the common Principles of Christian Doctrine but further the genuine sense of holy Scriptures and deepest Mysteries of our Faith so to enable them upon all occasions to teach to preach and to instruct the ignorant By Sweetness is here understood Meekness that since they must meet with all rudeness in nature and know all the harshness of sinners they had need of this Vertue to make their Reprehensions upon occasions more efficacious by the mildness and sweetness wherewith they exhort to good and dehort from evil life 7. By the Vertue of God is here meant either the power whereby sometimes they work Miracles or that fortitude wherewith they run through all difficulties in the practice of Christian Perfection By the Armour of Justice on the right hand and on
intrinsical flowing from the Deity The causes of this Fast were many As that thereby he might satisfie for Adams eating the forbidden Apple That his own humane Soul might be more apt to contemplation by this means That he might sanctifie the Lenten fast of forty days which he knew his Apostles would erect and deliver over for the Church to follow until the worlds end in imitation of this example he had given them When it is said That after forty dayes he was hungry this argues not but he might sooner have felt the want of meat however his divinity supplyed the defect thereof and when he was sensible of hunger afterwards it was not that he could no longer fast but to have the merit of being tempted against his holy purpose and of resisting that Temptation for our future instructions in like occasions 3. The Tempters approaching argues he came visibly in the shape of a man which he had assumed for Christ had his internals so regulated as likewise Adam by Original Justice had that he could not be tempted by any inward Suggestion against Reason nor was Adam what-ere he might have been so tempted but by Eve and she by a Serpent outwardly appearing When the Devil said If thou be the Son of God it argues he was doubtful of it for he had heard the voyce from heaven saying This is my beloved Son when Christ was Baptized as also he had heard how John the Baptist preached him to be the Messias the Son of God and yet seeing him appear to be a man and finding he was hungry as men are he tempts him to break his fast by the subtilty of telling him it would shew him to be the Son of God if he would turn stone into bread to satisfie his hunger 4. Excellent answer giving no advantage to the aggressor but repelling him rather by his own weapons turned upon him by holy Writ saying Man doth not onely live by bread but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God Deut. c. 8. v. 3. and what need he convert the stones to bread to manifest his power who with the least word of his mouth could feed the better part of man his Soul intimating thereby Prayer and Meditation to be as fit a food for the refreshment of a Christian as his daily bread the one enabling him to live eternally the other helping out a momentary breathing onely 5 6 7. The evil Spirit finding Gluttony to be no motive able to prevail with Deity flies to the medium that had wrought upon himself the Titillation of Ambition or Vain-glory when he said he would be like the Highest fondly thinking what prevailed with him in Heaven would work upon our Lord on Earth To be forsooth attended on by holy Angels though in an act of diabolical presumption Precipitation of himself from the pinacle of the Temple Too short a cloak to hide so large a sin as the Revenge thou aymest at beneath it Thou hadst thy self a Fall from Heaven down to Hell which thou wouldst now repay by giving Christ another from off the Temple where God is adored down to the ground where thy High Altar is when men adore low Creatures of the earth before their high Creator This this fond Serpent is thine aym to make thy God lye sprawling on the earth as thou dost lye in everlasting flames and this thou wouldst have done before the doors of all the holy Priests whose houses were about the Temple so to make them scorn and trample ore the God they had adored upon their holy Altars Alas how short is thy Serpentine wisdom of his that is eternal of his that sees thy specious pretexts are all deceits and tells thee so when he replies Thou shalt not tempt thy Lord thy God Deut. 6.16 How canst thou hope to Tempt hereafter any man to evil under shew of good this thou hast got to make poor man thy Master by ayming at the Mastery upon thy God To conclude by the Hands of Angels in this Text is understood their ayd for Spirits have no hands nor any other limbs or parts at all 8 9 10. Alas how poor a thing is Avarice to tempt a God withall say who is able first to give him any thing and it shall be restored Rom. 11. v. 35. Thus creatures seeme to uncreate their God in their foolish imaginations thinking him to be imperfect as themselves needy or indigent as they who yet hath made and given to the universe a being out of nothing But for the devill to presume God should adore him too for that he could not give this is a fondnesse not to be exprest as passing all imagination and so was best returned with a scorn of bidding the fond usurper know his distance go like a Lacquey at the heeles of his creator and well he was not yet reduc't to his first principle to nothing by an immediate annihilation It was indeed high time to tame his insolence when nothing but an homage due to God an Adoration would suffice him No devil no maugre thy pride Thou must adorâ— thy Lord thy God and he alone it is that thou and we and all the world must serve His are the Heavens and the earth is his and well it is thou art the Lacquey yet of him thou wouldst have Lorded over if thou couldst It is his greater glory to force thee to thy duty maugre thy proud heart then to deprive himselfe of what is good in thee thy being how bad soever thou art thy selfe and howsover despicablely miserable in that being too 11. Some doe doubt how Christ came backe to his desert of Quarentana when the devill was gone affirming the good Angels carryed him thither as the bad Angel had brought him thence but probably himselfe gave his own Divinity leave to doe that office to his body if yet we may not say it was the effect of his glorified soule and body too for they were both as glorious then as now Sure enough as soon as he was there the Angels as to their Lord and God came offering their attendance however this is for our comfort that after the devill hath tempted us if we resist we may hope the Angels will come to comfort us that need it since they did so to Christ who stood in no necessity thereof at all The Application 1. WE had the honour to be called into the field to day by the Lieutenant Generall the Priest of holy Church but we are led up to the Battaile by the Captaine Generall himselfe our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath already vanquisht all our enemies for as he dyed to conquer death and purchase us eternall life by dying so by his being tempted he secur'd us of the victory in our Temptations if we but resist the Temptor and persisting in our holy purposes Crown the Fast with our Perseverance therein such as Jesus in his hunger gave us an example of although not bound to Fast as we 2. It is a
as also the Gentiles that know not God 6. And that no man over-goe nor circumvent his brother in businesse because our Lord is revenger of all these things as we have foretold you and have testified 7. For God hath not called us into uncleannesse but into Sanctification The Explication 1. THe Apostle fitly vseth the word walk insteed of live in this and most places since it is not a posture suitable to the present life for Christians to stand still we remember our Saviour rebuked those that did it Matth. 20. v. 6. Saying why stand ye here the whole day idle as if to stand still were to be idle and loyter so the posture of a good Christian is and ought to be walking moving going on from vertue to vertue Psal 38. untill at last he arrive to the rewarder and source of all vertues God himselfe for by bidding us to walk so as thereby we may please God and abound more and more we are bid to accumulate vertues upon vertues so long as we live in this vicious world and that we may know how to doe this the Apostle bids that we follow his rule for this purpose framed to our hands as it was to the Thessalonians since what he writ to them was with intention it should be handed over from age to age even to us and to those that should live in the very last of times 2. His meaning is that he gave them this rule of perfection by Authority Commission or inspiration from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and this rule was not to tell them onely what he had observed in our Saviour to this purpose making himselfe an example of perfection to us all but also what by inspiration of the holy Ghost himselfe as an Apostle intrusted with the care and charge of soules had upon occasion found expedient to prescribe unto them and this Authority as it was given to the Apostles so it descendeth from them unto their successors the Fathers and rulers of Soules especially the governing party of the Church the Pope and Bishops thereof 3. By the will of God is not here understood that will which is commonly called the will of his Beneplacitum or holy pleasure to doe himselfe what he pleaseth but the will of his signe mark or token what he would have us to doe and that not in generall for so his will is we should have perfect and universall Sanctity in all our actions but in particular he points out here for us the Sanctification of chastity so we may see by all the following verses as who should say God was particularly pleased to point out his Signall will unto us that the vertue which is most suitable to his infinite simplicity and purity namely chastity should be aimed at by all Christians that even those who were marryed people should by tempering their carnall passions and desires partake in some measure of this divine vertue and those who were not marryed should have an expresse prohibition from the foule impurity of Fornication since it seemes the Apostle forbids it here not onely under the generall rule the prohibition thereof in the commandements but with a specially preamble that he doth by name forbid this sinne as having it specially declared unto him that it was the signall will of God he should doe so 4. This place is commonly understood as prescribing a rule of moderation to marryed people that they so use the lawfull bed of pleasure as they forget not to Sanctifie themselves even by and in the use thereof remembring God hath elevated that corporal communication so much coveted and delighted in by Flesh and Bloud that he hath raised the wonted civill contract of marriage to be now a more holy thing even a Sacrament or conduite-pipe of his holy grace into the Soules of such people as make religious and not lustfull use thereof for of the latter we see sad examples in the seven husbands of Sara snatched from her bed because they marryed her purely for lust not for any limited or regulated love and so againe by a pious abstinence upon fasts or feasts from corporall knowledge of each other specially when marryed Christians receive the Sacrament they use their vessels in Sanctification of themselves and honour of God thereby for reverence to whose blessed Body and holy Sacraments they abstaine from their otherwise lawfull pleasures yet there is a deeper and more universall application aimed at by the Apostle in this place even to all Christians whatsoever married or single since though to marryed persons their mutually betrothed bodies to one another are their vessels properly here specified yet to single persons by their vessels are meant their single bodies which containe their soules within them as so many precious liquors in the sight and to the Palat of Almighty God who is jealous lest any of that liquour should be drawne out and given to creatures that is lest by following the impulse of sense they should poure out the affections of their soules upon their own corporall pleasures or the delight of any other body whatsoever for pure respect to the creature and not so stand upon their guard as not to part with the least drop of their soules affections either to themselves or any others which are all due to Almighty God for this is to possesse each one his owne vessell as Rom. 6 v. 19. Saint Paul adviseth and to possesse it in Sanctification of himselfe by acts of love to the divine Majesty and in honour of Almighty God by so doing and contrary to this counsell doe all those who make their bodies possesse that is to say command their Soules whereas the soul is to possesse her body in this sense of commanding it as finally she shall doe in the kingdome of heaven and as at first Adams soul did even here on earth 5. This verse prosecutes the sence of the former by representing unto us the bestiality it is in Christians to proceed like Gentiles who are called a people that is no people because they are more like beasts then men and such the Apostle accounts Christians who follow the passions of lust the full swinge of their carnall desires without any religious limit thereof even when carnall pleasure is lawfull because to doe thus is as if we knew no God for whose sake we were to refraine our inordinate appetites not onely in carnall pleasures but in those meats drinkes or companies that propend us thereunto 6. In this place the Apostles sense lyes lyable to a very easie mistake and the words sound as if he did leap from the Subject of lust to that of fraud deceipt or injury but indeed he prosecutes his former sense in this whole Epistle So he must here be understood by businesse to forbid Adultery as above he hath forbidden Fornication not to overgo is here meant literally forbidding any man to goe over his neighbours marriage bed and thereby defraud him of his due which is to have
bred up and not far from Capernaum where he wrought his most Miracles high to shew heaven is hugely elevated from earth and that as in heaven the glory of God shall be so in Thabor the glory of Christ was manifested to those who were like the Elect amongst many chosen singled out for eternal happiness in the next and for testimonies here of Christ his Deity shining through the cloud of his humanity as the next verse describeth 2. His Transfiguration consisted not in the change of his humane shape nor in his giving his body all the gifts of glorified bodies in heaven impassibility agility subtility clarity but in shewing to the Apostles the last onely of these gifts and that so far forth as their weak eyes were capable of which clarity Christ was fain to suppress whilest he lived here that he might be seen and conversed with by all men for else it was at all times due to him as all the other gifts of glorified bodies were by reason of his Divinity united to his humanity Note though there be special mention made of a change in his face onely shining like the Sun and his garments become white as snow yet this clarity or glory was general over all his blessed body and as the brightness of the Sun in his face was a type of his Deity so the whiteness of his garments did represent the purity of his humanity and withal it shewed us how the grace and glory of God renders our Souls as white as snow and by that means transfigures the Saints from their Aethiopian blackness of sin into so many garments of whitest lillies as it were bedecking the body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ 3. These two were summoned as Witnesses to testifie that whatsoever the Law or Prophets said of Christ should be verified Moses standing for the first Elias for the second as also to reward them for their forty days Fast which each had undergone the one to be worthy thereby to receive the Laws the other to ascend the Mount Horeb and farther yet because he would take away the doubt which people had that he was Moses or Elias or some other Prophet and again lest Moses should appear to have been injured when Christ did abrogate the ancient Law as also lest Elias should be valued equal to Almighty God in glory which some conceived of him finâ—lly to shew he had full power of life and death to call Moses dead thither and to summon Elias alive from the place where he was kept till his second coming To both of whom Christ communicated a splendor something like indeed to that of his own garments white as snow that so they might be more worthy of the honour done them to confer and talk with him but far inferior to the whiteness of his own 4. All Expositors say this was a speech of a man half beside himself drunk as it were with the present glut of contentment and not forecasting future things besides that it was impertinent to build Tabernacles for those whom he saw in glory as also it was to fix Christ upon earth and in Thabor who came to purchase heaven for all the world by his passion which by his remaining here had been prevented and to hope for heaven before himself had laboured to deserve it or to think eternal Beatitude consisted in the glory of Christs humanity and not in the beholding of his Deity which here they did not see 5. The interposition of this Cloud upon this speech argues a check given to the speaker thereof by depriving him of that alluring sight which he knew not how to make right use of but not separating them from a due distance both to see and hear whence they fell as S. Luke sayes into a present fear yet this Cloud was clear to shew the difference betwixt the Old Law and the New That being delivered to Moses in a dark cloud This avow'd to be delivered by Christ before Moses Elias and these three Apostles in a clear resplendent Cloud out of which was heard the voyce of God the Father saying This is my beloved Son c. Some think Moses and Elias were gone before this voyce was heard lest the Apostles might doubt to which of the three it was spoken but since they were to be both eye and ear-witnesses too 't is probable they might see to whom the address was made and questionless God did make this testimony such as could not be lyable to doubt since he was pleased to have these Witnesses of the thing as he made them saying Hear him that is Hear my beloved Son for from his mouth not from the mouth of Moses and Elias shall proceed all Truth and Salvation to Mankind The reason why this command of hearing him was not added when he was stiled by the like voyce from heaven to be Son to the same Father at his Baptism was because then he was onely shewed to be the Messias whom men before conceived the Baptist to have been But here he is in presence of Moses and Elias preferred in point of Doctrine before them as if all they had said or done was but to prefigure him but that what he sayes reports to none beside himself as having vigour in it to make him known to be the Illuminator of all the former Prophets and so of himself the true Doctor of Nations and Law-maker thereunto whence he for his own sake is to be heard others for respect onely to him and there was reason to say Hear him that comes to abrogate the Old and to make a New Law to dye for the sins of his people in such excess of ignominy as he and Moses did but now talk of to rise from the dead himself and thereby to impower all men to rise again after they are dead to the Judgement Seat where those that till then believe it not shall finde there is a Hell and those who are believers shall know there is a Purgatory and a Limbus Patrum since Moses was from the latter summoned hither to this Mystery of Transfiguration which was exhibited as an undoubted testimony of the Truths that were preached by him whom we were then commanded to hear and consequently to believe 6. They feared at the shrilness of the voyce though sweet at the loss of the sight they had before of Moses and Elias whom they might suspect were sent away to fulminate vengeance from God upon the people who had abused his beloved Son and hence fearing they fell upon their faces to shew they were themselves ready to adore him 7. And Jesus pitying the fright they were in came presently to comfort them and raise them up again from the posture of their prostration thereby to shew we cannot sooner humble our selves to God then he is ready to raise a comfort in us 8. The reason why they then see none but Jesus was because now all things were given up to his cure no more rigorous Law
times ease them of these Plagues the Flyes caused amongst them though in the Greek Beelzebub signifies the god of Muck or Dung and yet that is not inconsistent with the sense as above because where Dung is there are alwayes Flyes and so the Devil is by this name called both God of Flyes and of Dung too since the ordure of Sin is far more nasty then that of any dung can be 16. This Verse will in effect be explicated on the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost where the Doctor of the Law tempting our Saviour asked him c. so here needs no more to be said of it then that it was an impertinent demand to ask a sign of his Deity after such a Miracle as this 17. Here he shews them he knew their mindes by confounding them in what they thought although they spake it not with the applying this Simile unto them that follows which is as clear as that Civil Wars destroy a Kingdom and Faction in particular Families ruines both parties of the Faction for that is understood by house upon house family against family 8. For if I undertake to cast out a devil in the devils name or power and so by your consequence am my self a devil do you not see it were to make a faction against the devil who had Seated himself there from whence I cast him out and so I should rather make a new then end the old strife therefore to end the matter I must use another power 19. By the former Verse he had shewed them his power was from another source then from the devil and consequently if they will yet hold that Doctrine and say that one Devil is cast out by another he leaves them as men so desperate that are past all cure of reason and so to be left unto the guide of that Devil who had so strangely blinded them Thus the close of this Verse argues he concluded of them whom he found so maliciously so perversly obstinate in an Error Or if we take it literally that he casting out devils in the devils name if their children would undertake to cast out the devil in another name since he that was God knew they did it not in Gods Name he leaves them to be guided by their children that is he calls them fools who would have children for their guides and especially children of Infidelity for such were all theirs 20. By the finger of God he in this place understands the Spirit or power of God for so S. Matthew speaks relating the same story cap. 12. v. 28. by the Kingdom of God he means the grace which doth here begin to reign and shall perfectly rule in Glory when it hath brought those to Heaven whom it governed upon Earth And certainly Grace deserves the Title of the Kingdom of God when it is manifestly made appear to be destructive to the Kingdom of the Devil as by overcoming Sin it is and as here actually it was by casting out the devil from that place where he had seated himself for though God be the principal yet Grace is the instrumental agent in all Sanctity and works that are above Nature 21 22. These two Verses argue from Similitude very strongly and yet so clearly that they need no other Exposition then their own words literally understood onely that we note the Devil was meant by the strong man his Court was this World all wholly in his possession by the sin of Adam and that as fully as a fortified Town is in that Governors hands against whom none dares lay a Siege but leave all in peace in and about the Town not that the children of Adam were in peace by being the Devils Captives but that no power was such as durst undertake to force them out of Captivity until that happened which Christ aymed at namely that God came who alone is able to lead Captivity captive to overthrow the Devil and all his works 23. By this Verse our Saviour told the Pharisees they were his enemies because they took the Devils part against him or which was all one because they did not take his part against the Devil for as in a Town besieged all that will not if call'd upon fight to keep out the Enemy scaling the Walls are held as much friends to the Enemy as if they did actually fight for them so they now that Christ came to take this City of the World these Pharisees who would not being called upon by him fight for him were esteemed as if they did actually fight against him since as God he was their lawful Commander and might command them to fight for him by believing in him as one that had power to quell the Devil 24. By the unclean Spirit is here meant the Devil so called because he is not onely defiled by the malice of his own rebellious Sin but is like a Sow ever wallowing in the mire of all sinful actions as if his whole delight were to rowl in the filthy soul sink of sin Christ here alludes to the former casting out this unclean Spirit from the Jews when God chose that stiff necked people to be his Favorites above all the Nations of the earth and in the persons of his holy Patriarchs and Prophets declared he had cast the Devil out of all the Jews who departing from them wandereth up and down among the Gentiles not unfitly called places without water first as to God affording no drop of penitential Tears to expiate their sins next as to the Devil being people he could not rest in because he had not content in the easie conquest he made of them who were not worthy to be esteemed the Favorites of God And therefore the Devil out of pride esteemed them even unworthy to be his accursed lacqueys and so could not rest in such a conquest but returned again to that earth which had at least some wholesome water to compact it into a body of people worthy to be called a Nation which the Gentiles were unworthy of while God angry with the Jews said by the mouth of David I will provoke them in a people which is no Nation meaning the Gentiles that destroyed Jerusalem The Devil therefore cast out of the Jews into the Gentiles when God made the Jews his chosen people sayes with himself he will return again into his house whence he departed for indeed he was master of all mens Souls till God snatched the Jews out of his hands 25. The besome that had swept this house was the Law of Moses which did indeed purifie the house of clay the body of the Jews but brought no Grace into their Souls So hither the Devil returns again when he set all those people a murmuring in their way from Egypt to the land of Promise 26 27. And remembring he was before cast out when he had taken but single possession he now comes armed in with many guurds brings seven devils more along with him that is to say all the devils in
us whose guilty consciences tell us we deserve a famine in punishment of our sins rather then such a Feast as joys our hungry souls And as by this we see a joyful Communion is an accomplishment of our Lenten Fast so before that Communion we are fitly taught to premise such a Prayer as may first strike into us an act of Contrition and then compleat our Ioy. Say then the Prayer above and see if it be not most propper to this purpose And say it also to force out of us further yet the vertue of Gratitude such as these people shewed to Jesus when they thought to make him presently their King O let us make him the perfect Commander of our hearts-affections he will not fly from that Soveraignty because he doth affect it On Passion Sunday in Lent The Antiphon John 8. v. 56. YOur Father Abraham rejoyced that he might see the day he did see it and was glad Vers Deliver me O Lord from the evil man Resp .. From the wicked man deliver me The Prayer VVE beseech thee Almighty God propitiously behold thy Family that thou giving we may be governed in body and thou reserving we may be preserved in soul The Illustration IUst as your ebbing waters meet yong floods so doth the Edde stream of Lenten fast fall to the banks to day and leaves the Channel for the Churches Prayers to bring the red Sea of the Passion in upon us whence we cal this Passion Sunday Yes yes beloved This is very true and yet I do believe few have observed this to be so God grant that all may see it when 't is made appear out of the Prayer above which I confess was to me as hard as if I had been forc't to pick a lock whereof the proper key was lost and truly where to finde a mention of the Passion in a proper term in all this Prayer I know not but yet this help remains a common key will do as well when proper keys are missing Take therefore the propitious look of God upon us which to day we beg and then believe the door is open to our Saviours Passion for what is that but a propitiation for our sins which we implore when we beseech Almighty God to look propitiously upon his Family and though we use this phrase at other times as well as now yet that forbids not a common key to open a private door nay rather this is indeed the particular key unto the Passion and made common upon all other occasions because that sacred Sea flows over all the other works and mercies of Almighty God gives force and value to all our actions and so is here properly applyed however it hath become a common stile in all our Prayers Now by this key we shall open all the doors of this days Epistle and Gospel for why is Christ his blood a more powerful Sacrifice then that of Oxen Goats and Heyfers in the old Law as this Epistle tells us but because theirs availed onely to a nominal purity This to a real propitiation for all our sins that onely leads us into the Tabernacle of the Arke this into the Tabernacle of glory to conclude this propitious look we begge to day unlocks the Cabinet of the Gospel also and leads us after a long contest between Jesus and the Jewes whether he or they were devils whether he or Abraham were the greater person unto the very first entrance into his Sacred Passion where we should finde them stoning him to death but that he miraculously preserves himselfe for a more ignominious Sacrifice upon the Altar of the holy Crosse for whilest Jesus thus expostulated with the Jewes certainly he did looke propitiously upon the Gentiles in whose behalfe hee so much exasperated the Jewes as they menaced his death And this may suffice to bring our new floud in See now how the Lenten edde meetes the Passion Tyde in a way as strang as true while we are bid begge our sparing meales out of Gods ample giving hand and the preservation of our Soules out of his reserving from us whereas fasting requires a hand which will take away rather then give food to the body and our soules preservation depends upon Gods ever giving hand his adding more and more to his former graces bestowed on us all this is true in one sence and so is the contrary in another for we begge in this Prayer a rule and government of our bodies and that according to the time of Fast whence it follows our meat should be now given us with the same regulating hand of God that knowes best how to proportion food fit for a Fast which we doe not know nor doe we aske absolutely the full-giving hand of God to be extended to us but that which may so give as to reserve withal and hence we pray that thou giving us little food for our bodies they may be wel governed and thou reserving the former plenty we may enjoy at other times our Soules may be preserved from the guilt of those past excesses and so prepared as vessels empty of worldly trumpery to be the more capable of those heavenly treasures that are Sayling towards us upon the red Sea of thy bitter Death and Passion O Blessed Saviour now flowing in upon us The Epistle Heb. 9. v. 11 c. 11 But Christ assisting an High Priest of the good things to come by a more ample and more perfect Tabernacle not made with hand that is not of this creation 12 Neither by the blood of Goats or of Calves but by his own blood entred once into the Holies eternall redemption being found 13 For if the blood of Goats and of Oxen and the ashes of an Heifer being sprinkled sanctifieth the polluted to the cleansing of the flesh 14 How much more hath the blood of Christ who by the Holy Ghost offered himselfe unspotted unto God cleansed your consciences from dead workes to serve the living God 15 And therefore he is the Mediator of the New Testament that death being a mean unto the redemption of prevarications which were under the former Testament they that are called may receive the promise of the Eternall Inheritance The Explication 11 12. HItherto the Apostle in this Chapter had described the manner of the High Priests officiating in the old Law as also he described the Exod. c. 25. c. 26. Tabernacle wherein were placed the Candlesticks the Table and the Bread of proposition and this Tabernacle was called Sanctum The Holy but behinde a Curtaine at the back of this Sanctum there was yet placed another Tabernacle which was called Sanctum Sanctorum or the Hoâ—y of Holies unto which none but the High Priest could goe who there was to offer Sacrifice while the people remained all without praying for themselves as the Priest did for them all and here stood a golden Thurible the Arke of the Testament all guilded over wherein was a golden Shrine which had in it the Manna the two
claime of God in respect of his own merits but in respect of the merits of Christ elevating mans workes to a height of value more then in themselves they have or can have or to speake more plainly not that man workes his own Salvation by his owne power but that God workes that in man which man alone cannot work in himselfe and which yet by cooperation with Gods holy Grace he may claime not as absolutely due to him but as due to Christ working in him The Application 1. WHilest St. Paul brings us in the very front of this Epistle our Blessed Saviour himselfe the High Priest officiating to day no marvell that the Church erects the Altar of the bloody Crosse for Christ to celebrate upon and this Passion Sunday when the ensigne of the Passion is display'd alone the holy and the bloody Crosse of Christ 2. As little marvel 't is we are to day depriv'd of all the suffrages of Saints in Publick Office of the Priest such as we formerly made open intercession to beseeching their assistance in the close of Lawds and Even-song because we now are to suppose that time is flowing when there were no Saints at all nor any Angels able to relieve us since we see the Saint of Saints the Son of God begins to suffer more decreed to dye hence are the usuall Ornaments removed to day the Churches left with naked wals in Catholike Countries where Rights and Ceremonies are observed the Pictures of the Saints pull'd downe and nothing left us but the bloody Crosse to minde us that Almighty God nev'r look't propitiously on us but when he frown'd upon his Sacred Son and made his Passion our Propitiation 3 Say then beloved what 's our duty now is it to wave the Holy Fast or no is it to seek for dispensations by corrupting our Physitians by deluding Ghostly fathers by flattering indeed by cheating of our selves under pretext of sicknesse or infirmity fie no where these are reall there 's no Fast commanded where they are not dispensation's Null because the Fast obligeth maugre dispensation Cease then O Christians cease to pamper sinners while God suffers for our sinnes looke for no favor but from Christ himselfe take no reliefe but what his sparing hand gives to your bodies now reserving greater graces for your soules as in the Illustration we have heard Adde rather frequent Tears unto your Fast for the accomplishment thereof adde your Compassion to our Saviours Passion because there is no company acceptable to our bleeding Christ but a weeping Christian Thus may we hope for the Propitious look we begge to day when he beholds us the relenting the resigned soules we ought to be whilest holy Church prayes as above The Gospell Io. 8. v. 46 c. 46 Which of you shall argue me of sinne If I say the veritie why do you not beleeve me 47 He that is of God heareth the words of God Therefore you heare not because you are not of God 48 The Iewes therefore answered and said to him do not we say well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a devill 49 Iesus answered I have no devil but I doe honour my Father and you have dishonoured me 50 But I seeke not my own glory There is that seeketh and judgeth 51 Amen Amen I say to you If any man keepe my word he shall not see death for ever 52 The Iewes therefore said now we have known that thou hast a devill Abraham is dead and the Prophets and thou sayest if any man keepe my word he shall not taste death for ever 53 Why art thou greater then our Father Abraham who is dead and the Prophets are dead whom doest thou make thy selfe 54 Iesus answered If I doe glorifie my selfe my glory is nothing it is my Father that glorifieth me whom you say that he is your God 55 And you have not known him but I know him and if I shall say that I know him not I shall be like to you a lyer But I doe know him and doe keep his word 56 Abraham your Father rejoyced that he might sete my day and he saw and was glad 57 The Iewes therefore said to him thou hast not yet fifty yeeres and hast thou seen Abraham 58 Iesus said to them Amen Amen I say to you before that Abraham was made I am 59 They tooke stones therefore to cast at him but Jesus hid himselfe and went out of the Temple The Explication 46. IT was in the presence of the High Priest as well as of divers Doctors and Pharisees that Jesus used this art of proving he might uncontrouleably reprove the people because he knew they could not answer him by recrimination nor put him to the blush of turpitude in a doctor reprehending others who is himselfe faulty in the same kind so Christ here reprehending the abominable sins of the Jews takes the priâ—iledge he cannot be denied of urging them to tax him if they can with sinne and yet lest his immunity from sinne might not suffice in their esteeme which yet was rooted both in his beatificall vision and hypostaticall union making God and man but one person he futher tels them it is pure verity that he preacheth to them so by these two titles of his veracity and sanctity he claimes beliefe of his doctrine and authority of rebuking their sinnes and he doth not here meane onely a naked delivery of truth but a demonstration of all hee tels them to be undoubted and absolute verity rooted in his owne divine veracity and so not to be any wayes disputed but exacting their firme and constant beliefe whence with great reason he sayes here why doe you not believe me 47. It is here to be noted that the Manichaean Heresie was ill grounded from this place as if there had been some men born of a good and others of a bad Spirit and so they of necessity not of choice were either good or bad since here Christ alludes not to the natural but to the supernatural man Hence when he says he that is of God his meaning is he that is inspired by the Grace of God and of his Spirit such it is that hears the word of God and therefore they heard it not because they followed the inspiration of the evil and not of the good Spirit Now that he meant this as to them ill at that time inspired not ill created or naturally made ill it is evident for diverse of them were afterwards by his death and by his Apostles preaching converted and doubtless saved too whence it follows that as they naturally were not made so bad as no good could come of them so they were by supernatural and not by natural means made the good people which afterwards they became and thus those once good become bad again when leaving the inspiration of the good Spirit they follow the dictamens of the bad one 48. It seems by this manner of speech they were used frequently to call him Samaritane
merit in them and that merit is to make us to have deserved such a master then let us confidently say this Prayer to day and all this holy week for as it is the last of the Lenten Sundayes Prayers so we may see it Steers the ships of our Bodies and Soules downe the very gulfe of our Saviours Passion where to suffer shipwracke is to be saved since the greatest mercy in this Sea is to be cast away upon the waves thereof as our Pilot Jesus was himselfe heare his own words out of the royall Prophets mouth Psal 68. v. 3. I came into the depth of the Sea and was drowned in the Tempest of it This Sea was that of his Passion which we are now all sayling on nor can we hope for greater mercy then to be used as heavenly Ionas was our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to be swallowed up by the whale of death to dye to this wicked world that so we may with Ionas-Jesus be cast upon the shore of Resurrection according as the Prayer above purports But lest we forget the Edde of our Lenten Fast running by the shoares of this Red Sea see how admirably the holy Ghost hath contrived this Prayer with due regard to all circumstances of persons time and place for what more eminent effects of a religious Fast then patience and humility and to what more apparent end are these vertues recommended unto us in this dayes service then that thereby we may obtaine a propitious looke from heaven and to deserve a fellowship in the resurrection with Christ after we have learn't without book these lessons of humility and patience which God sent his Sacred Son to teach us The Epistle Philip. 2. v. 5. c. 5 For this thinke in your selves which also in Christ Iesus 6 Who when he was in the forme of God thought it no robbery himselfe to be equall to God 7 But he exinanited himselfe taking the forme of a Servant made into the similitude of men and in shape found as man 8 He humbled himselfe made obedient unto death even the death of the Crosse 9 For the which thing God also hath exalted him and hath given him a name which is above all names 10 That in the name of Jesus every knee bow of the celestials terrestrials and infernals 11 And every tongue confesse that our Lord Iesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father The Explication 5. THe Apostle had in the foregoing verses of this Chapter exhorted to humility in superiority and now in this verse he takes for a rule of our humility that of Christ who though God disdained not to fall below the repute of man and called himselfe even a worme and not a man so low he had stooped for our instruction and example And Saint Paul by this expression doth not onely wish us to thinke humbly of our selves but even to feele by a practicall humiliation the same subjection within us which Christ felt when he became the scorne of men and the out-cast or offals of the people This is the genuine sense of the Apostle though even to thinke to reflect on Christs humility and by reflecting thereon to humble our selves is not an ill exposition of this place neither and thereby to comfort our selves that as Christ his humility was the cause of his exaltation so will our humility prove to us if we embrace it for our Saviours sake 6. But to imprint this Doctrine deeper in us the Apostle amplifies how farre Christ did debase himselfe for our example saying that though he were in the forme of God c. Where we are to note this word forme is here taken perversely by the Arrians when they thence infer Christ was not really and truly God but had onely a shape or forme divine better then other men ever had yet this is a grosse corruption of the Text for Saint Paul meanes here Physicall not Artificiall naturall and not fictitious forme such forme as gives being to the thing in which it is as the forme of wood gives an essentiall distinct being to wood differing from all other substances that are not wood and so in this place the Apostle sayes Christ being in the forme of God being really God himselfe who neither is nor can be multiplyed into many Gods by the forme of God being communicated to many persons as the forme of man is multiplyed into many men though all those men have but one forme specificall one humane forme This shewes the nature or forme of God is infinitely more perfect and more simple then any other nature can be which may be numerically multiplyed though specifically it still remaine one as humane nature is when many men contract it but the divine nature is not so multiplyed though contracted by three distinct persons for we cannot say there are many Gods though it is most true there are many men so the Apostle here speaks literally and rigorously of the form of the nature divine and sayes Christ being coequall God with his Father in regard of his divine nature held it not robberie to say he was equal to God held it no prejudice to his Father to say he was truly one and the same God with him 7. And yet this notwithstanding though he were in the forme of God who is Lord and Master of all the world he would exinanite himselfe debase and lessen himselfe into the forme of a servant made into the similitude of man and in shape found as man who is by all the Titles of the world a vassall Servant and creature of Almighty God though indeed exinanire is not to be truly rendered into English for it is in effect to say Annihiâ—aâ—e not that he was in truth annihilated onely this word imports thus much that Christ who as God was all things had in a manner annihilated himselfe to become man who in the sight of God was and is as much as nothing because pure man hath no being but from God and if God could take away that gift or rather loane of Being which he affords to man instantly man would returne into his first principle which was nothing before Being was lent unto him I say if God could because as to give Being argues perfection so to take it away some Divines thinke would argue imperfection in God as if he would or could destroy himself by Annihilation of any thing since to take Being from a thing is to take his own perfection away which God cannot doe though he may punish those who use their Being to the dishonor of God by making them Be eternally miserable whom he created with power to have Bin eternally happy By the forme of Servant is here understood the humane nature which Christ assumed for that was truly a Servant even to his own Divine nature which did assume it and this for as much as that nature was a creature and so a Servant to the creator thereof but not that Christ was a Servant by
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
expositors as above because it was a thing unheard of that the dead should rise againe so that Faith is here recommended to us for the vertue which the Scribes and Pharises were too blame not to allow of at all but conceived good workes without faith were enough to save their soules as in like manner the Heretickes of this Time are equally too blame to think that faith alone is sufficient without good works whereas Catholikes are taught both are absolutely necessary and therefore Pray as above that we may retaine in our lives and manners that is to say in our good workes the faith we have in the Resurrection of our Lord. The Gospel St. Iohn c. 20. v. 19. c. 19 Therefore when it was late that day the first of the Sabbaths and the doores were shut where the Disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jewes Jesus came and stood in the midst and saith to them Peace be to you 20 And when he had said this he shewed them his hands and side The Disciples therefore were glad when they saw our Lord. 21 He said therefore to them againe Peace be to you As my Father hath sent me I doe also send you 22 When he said this he breathed upon them and he saith to them receive ye the Holy Ghost 23 Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them and whose you shall retaine they are retained 24 But Thomas one of the twelve who is called Didymus was not with them when Jesus came 25 The other Disciples therefore said to him we have seene our Lord. But he said to them unlesse I see in his hands the print of the nailes and put my Finger into the place of the nailes and put my hand into his side I will not beleeve 26 And after eight dayes againe his Disciples were within and Thomas with them Iesus commeth the doores being shut and stood in the midst and said peace be to you 27 Then saith he to Thomas put in thy finger hither and see my hands and bring hither thy hand and put it into my side and be not incredulous but faithfull 28 Thomas answered and said unto him my Lord and my God 29 Jesus saith to him because thou hast seen me Thomas thou hast beleeved Blessed are they that have not seene and have beleeved 30 Many other signes did Jesus in the sight of his Diseiples which are not written in this Book 31 And these are written that you may beleeve that Iesus Christ is the Son of God and that beleeving you may have life in his name The Explication 19. That this apparition of Christ was his first to his Apostles and to them for fear assembled all but Thomas together in a Chamber in Hierusalem is most undoubted by this Text which yet may seeme to clash with what the Angels said to the Maries as Saint Mark cap. 16. v. 7. reports in the close of last Sundayes Gospel For by that verse it seemes the Maries were to goe after the Apostles into Galilee as if they had been fled for feare from Hierusalem and as if Christ had promised his first apparition after his resurrection should be in Galilee but upon deliberate examine it will be found the Angell spake of that apparition in Galilee as the most celebrated because it was before so great a number as well of Disciples of Christ his friends as before his Apostles who were not onely his chosen servants and his friends also designed to be imployed in a higher service namely that of Apostolate So this considered there is no scruple of contradiction in the Evangelists if here we finde Saint Iohn say this apparition of Christ to his Apostles assembled ten of them together in Hierusalem was his first of all though afterwards they fled for fear into Galilee and had againe the honour to be present when Christ did there appeare to above five hundred at once as Saint Paul avoucheth 1 Cor. 15. v. 6. besides it is evident by the Text of this verse that this was Christ his first apparition to his Apostles because it was late that day namely on Easter day on Sunday the first of the Sabbath so called from the dignity it had to be made ever after the first day of the Christian week and so their Sabbath day as bringing them newes of the eternall rest which Christ his resurrection upon that day had purchased unto them and if we observe the story as Saint Iohn relates it there was reason why it should be late that day for first the Maries were to goe from the Tombe to the City then Mary Magdalene runing away before the rest seemes first to have met Peter and Iohn onely and comming back with or after them who run to the Tombe to see if it were true that Mary had told them and returning afterwards to get together their whole number of Apostles if they could though with seare of the Iewes to consult what was to be done by them and in the meane time Mary comming back to the Sepulchre and weeping there had the honour to have our Saviour appeare unto her and then to goe open mouth to the Apostles and to tell them she was not now to seek but had found her Lord and that he had told her he was to ascend to his heavenly Father so before all this was done the day must needs passe a pace away and therefore no marvell it was late when our Saviour appeared the doores being shut where the Disciples were gathered together probably in the same roome where Christ with them made his last Supper This place argues Christ may be in the Sacrament without extension of Parts as well as he could with his whole Body enter into the room where his Apostles were and had the doors close shut upon them for fear of the Jews whatsoever the Hereticks pretend to the contrary this being as strange a Penetration as the other is a Transubstantiation and a Celation or Covering the Order of his Corporeal Parts not amassed nor confounded one with another how ever not requiring such extension as is naturally requisite to their dimensions since it is as easie for God to keep his real Body under the Sacramental Species without commensuration to place as it was for him to pass with his whole Body thorough the walls without division made by his miraculous Penetration of their Parts being therefore they must grant this because his Apostle says it how can they with modesty deny the other which himselfe avouched when he said Take and eat this is my Body Mark cap. 14. v. 22. Luk. cap. 22. v. 19. and which his Apostles took and believed in the Sense that now the Roman Churches believes and defends it against all the opposers of that most sacred Truth But observe the first salute of our Saviour saying peace be to you which is to say all good betide you fear no more I have fought your battailes and bring you the tidings of a
to day mixeth the Lay mans duty with that of the Priest to shew us that what in an eminent degree Christ taught his Apostles and consequently their successors the Pastors of Gods Church who by office have care of soules in some sort at least the layty was to imitate namely that heroicall or rather that divine Act of Faith which is required to Martyrdom For albeit the Priest be bound to many duties which do not oblige Lay people yet there is no man or woman whatsoever that is not rigorously bound to lay down life it selfe the deerest thing they have rather then deny their faith in Jesus Christ 2. Againe however the Lay-man is not bound to that perfection of charity and Justice which the Priest ought to have nor to excell in many other vertues essentially proper to the Priest as zeale of soules especially yet this dayes Epistle tels us that every Christian whatsoever stands obliged thus far to imitate the perfection of Jesus Christ himselfe as to preserve the proper vertues of the Paschall Feast sincerity and verity which is as much as to say some degree of saintity as was declared in the exposition of the Epistle upon Easter day and consequently if all be bound to saintity none are priviledg'd to sinne but every one is to avoid it as is told us in the second verse of this Epistle none is priviledg'd to beguile or defraud his neighbour for that is contrary to the Paschall sincerity and verity which all the Lambs of Christ are obliged unto 3. To conclude as all Christians are rigorously bound to a profession of the Faith of Christ with hazard of their lives so this Epistle instructs them all in that particular duty of suffering for Justice in testimony of their Faith and for that purpose layes before their eyes in what manner they are to suffer just as Jesus did following his steps therein Not reviling those that revile them not straying away for fear but like believing Lambs to follow their Pastor the Bishop of their soules their Jesus and their God to whom they are converted by their faith in him for whom they are to dye if need be as he hath dy'd for them and by his humble death hath raised them to the hopes of an eternall life and of everlasting joyes therein Which ever living comfort they Petition for to day emboldened thereunto by a pious memory of our Saviours death and Passion since from his Sepulchre as was said before flow all the hopefull streames of our eternall happinesse for the head and spring of Faith is our Saviours Resurrection from his grave The Gospel John 10. v. 11 c. 11 I am the good Pastor The good Pastor giveth his life for his sheep 12 But the hireling and he that is not the Pastor whose own the sheep are not seeth the wolfe comming and leaveth the sheep and flyeth and the wolfe raveneth and disperseth the sheep 13 And the hireling flyeth because he is an hireling And he hath no care of the sheep 14 I am the good Pastor and I know mine and mine know me 15 As the Father knoweth me and I know the Father and I yeeld my life for the sheep 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold them also I must bring and they shall heare my voyce and there shall be made one fold and one Pastor The Explication 11. GOod Pastor is here taken for most excellent prime or indeed onely Pastor as from whom all others derive that name because his death is reall life to his sheep whereas the death of other Pastors is 〈◊〉 a due sacrifice for the dyer and an example for the liver to follow rather then to flye from faith so that Christs life was not onely given us as an example but as a satisfaction for our sinnes 12. By Hireling here mystically understand those Priests who serve their Flock more for love of their Fleece then of the Sheep more for base gain then for souls salvation as who should say this very Act renders a man no true Pastour though by his place he be so yet literally by hireling is understood those that are not really true Pastours but usurpe the places of them Namely Hereticks who neither have Orders nor Mission and yet live upon Tythes as if they were truly intituled thereto for to such the souls of men do not truly belong however they take an usurped charge over them and those men commonly in time of persecution flinch steal themselves away and leave their sheep the souls they pretended right over unto the tyranny of the devouring wolfe the persecutor of Gods holy Church Note the true Pastour is said also to flye when he is silent and doth not rebuke his erring Flock by the Wolfe is understood Heresie or the Devil the father thereof ravening and snatching this man to luxury t'other to gluttony a third to murther and so disperseth them from the Flock and Fold of orderly Sheep making them wander till they fall into the pit that cryes Vae soli wo to the lonely 13. St. Gregory says the Name shews the Nature and so gives the cause by giving the Name for to be a hireling is cause enough to flye from danger since it argues he loves his hire better then his cure his profit better then his Office nor is he truly said to have care of his Sheep but of himself and therefore by his flying from his sheep he shews he had indeed no care of them 14. See the mark of a good Shepherd is to know his sheep and to have his sheep know him he knows their vertues to incourage them to more he knows their Vices to dehort them from the same and they know his Love and Doctrine to follow both since as his Love leads them freely so his Doctrine leads them safely again as a Pastour leads his sheep to new Pastures so must the Priest feed them with new Exhortations as the Pastour keeps the Wolfe from his Sheep so must the Priest his Souls from the temptation of sin and the Devil as the Pastour cherisheth his Lambs more then ordinarily so must the Priest cherish his children with frequent Catechisms and his new converts even as children as the Pastour cures the Diseases of his Sheep so must the Priest the Infirmities of his Souls Lastly as the true Shepherd will fight to Death rather then be beaten from his Flock so must the Priest in persecution dye rather then flye from his Parish and in case of Plague the Pastour is rather to run the hazard of it then to leave the people unprovided of Priests and in this case particularly the Pastours are bound ex officio by office to stay when Regulars that onely help ex charitate out of charity as it were may flye in point of danger if they please and that without sin 15. See how he follows this mutual knowledge comparing it to that wherewith God the Father knows his Son and that
wherewith the Son again knows the Father as my Father knows me to be his natural Son so he desires the Pastours to know souls to be their spiritual children and the souls again to know the Priests for their spiritual Fathers Note the Similitude here shews Analogy but not Equality since the Father knows not us to be other then his adopted Children as Christ hath by his Grace regenerated us and made us the adopted Sons of his heavenly Father while he says he yields his Life he means he lays it freely down not that it was or could be by his persecutors taken from him as the lives of his Sub-Pastours his Holy Priests may be for though they may dye willingly when persecuted yet they cannot be said to lay down their lives as Christ did for he came purposely to dye and Priests may not seek death though they are not bound to flye it neither when there is just cause of standing to it for others good again he is truly said to lay down life as being Author of it so is not the Priest 16. This verse alludes to the calling of the Gentiles besides the Jewes to the Faith of Christ and indeed to the plenary conversion of all the Nations in the world to that Faith before the day of latter judgement when all Nations shall be of one religion and unite themselves to the one visible head of Christ * upon earth namely the Pope Saint Peters successor not so as to say every man of every Nation shall be converted then for certainely Antichrist will have corrupted many that shall dye in their errors but so that some of all Nations shall be converted And if we say this hath been already verified in the Apostles converting all the world of whom it is said Psal 18. v. 5. Into all the earth hath the sound of them gone forth and unto the ends of the whole world the words of them perhaps we shall speake more literally to the meaning of Christ in this place for indeed in the time of Constantine the great by his conversion who was Emperor in a manner of all Nations there might be truly said to be one sold and one Pastor namely the then Pope of Rome as by the whole second Chapter of Saint Pauls Epistle to the Ephesians may appeare where three or foure times he repeateth making you both one that iâ— you Jewes and Gentiles both one Church of Christ built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets viz. Christ Jesus The Application 1. LAst Sunday we heard our Saviour gave his Apostles Commission to pardon and detaine sinnes now he tels them what manner of men they must be who are thus impowred namely Pastors of soules such as must feed and defend their sheep with the same fatherly love as hee the head Pastor did even with the loss of life if need be which though it be an act of the highest charity in the world yet is it rooted in the unshaken Faith of the Pastor and hath for the primary end the preservation of the like Faith in the sheep according to that of our Lord unto Saint Peter Luc. 22. v. 32. That thou once converted do confirme thy brethren in Faith 2. It is further worthy our remarke that a good Pastors care ought to be as we see in the close of this Gospel as well to gaine other soules to believe in Jesus Christ as to confirme those who are already true beleevers for it is by his sub-pastors preaching and suffering that our Saviour sayes he must have one shepheard and one fold that is to say all the world at last converted from their infidelity and made right beleevers This still maintaines the Doctrine that the end of Martyrdome is the Propagation of the Christian Faith since by the death of Martyrs even Infidels are brought to the fold of Christ 3. And since in the Epistle of this day Priests are bid to follow the example and steps of Christ in suffering in this a Pastor is most like our Saviour that his humiliation for we cannot come so farre as to exinanition to a naturall death for the good of his sheep is the raising of soules from their death of Infidelity to a supernaturall life to that of Faith in Jesus Christ When therefore our Pastors are invited to dye for their sheep it is to minde us how by our Saviours temporall death which brought him to the lowest humiliation the whole world was raised to the greatest and highest hope of an eternall life And therefore Holy Church most fitly Prayes to day as above On the third Sunday after Easter The Antiphon John 16. v. 20. AMen I say unto you that you shall waile and weepe but the world shall rejoyce and you shall be made sorrowfull but your sorrow shall be turned into joy Alleluja Vers Tarry with us O Lord Alleluja Resp For night draweth on Alleluja The Prayer O God who unto those that goe astray to the end they may returne to the way of Justice doest shew them the light of thy verity grant unto all those who by profession are esteemed Christians that they may both eschue those things which are contrary to this name and pursue those which are agreeable to the same The Illustration IT is admirable to see how many regards the Prayers of Holy Church have at once as in this besides that of the Resurrection which transcends * all the Prayers of the Church between Easter and the Ascension and besides that which is unto the Epistle and Gospel of the day as shall appear anon we see here a speciall regard unto the faint-hearted Christians who seeing Christ was dead and buryed tottered in their Faith of his Deity and went astray into a thousand Meandrous doubts in point of Faith for whose sakes that they might returne to the way of Iustice by a right beliefe Christ was pleased for forty dayes together to dwell upon earth meerly to confirme the truth of his Resurrection not onely infinitely doubted of but even held impossible and by his dwelling here so long to shew them the light of his verity which indeed was never so brightly seen as when it was made appear by his Resurrection confirming all the Truths he had taught the world before his death now that this Prayer reflects upon those tottering Christians who lived then when Christ arose as well as upon all us that succeed them see the following words point out such when the Prayer beggs that those who by profession are esteemed Christians as many were that yet doubted of the Resurrection may both eschue those things that are contrary to this name and nothing more contrary then to doubt of Christs veracity as these men did who would not beleeve he was truly risen from death to life and pursue those which are agreeable to the same that is to say may beleeve and professe their Faith in this particular or else they must disagree from all he said and taught besides if they
did not agree to this so important a truth and article of our Christian beliefe But now to our maine designe see how this Prayer like an Invisible Soule gives life to all the body of the Churches Service on this day whilest it tels us in generall termes the duty of good Christians which more particularly is summed up in the Epistle and Gospel following For what is that which Saint Peter in the former sayes more then this Prayer containes while he bids us walk here like Strangers and Pilgrimes and refraine carnal desires then that when we remember Christ his resurrection we should follow the light of that verity to prevent our going astray after carnall desires what meanes the so much inculcated good conversation among Gentiles in rhe Epistle but that we who are Catholikes and therefore by profession esteemed the best of Christians should give example of good life to all other sorts of Christians to all Gentiles Turkes Jewes and Infidels and should by the example of Christ his obedience to his Parents and to the powers of his time learn to be subject to every humane creature 1 Pet. c. 2. v. 13. though thereby we suffer even unjust oppressions as our Saviour did this is to be the good Christians that by profession we are esteemed This is to eschue things contrary to that most honourable name and to pursue what is most agreeable thereunto according as the Epistle exhorteth us To conclude this is also to beare patiently the vicissitudes of joyes and sorrowes mentioned in the Gospel if a while we See comfort and if a while after we See it not This is to be content Christ shall depart from us so the Holy Ghost come amongst us in his roome This is to be like teeming women groaning here and in Travell with the children of persecution paine torments and death it selfe for Jesus Christ and rejoycing when we are delivered of the manly and heroick acts of vertue the babes of grace which will bring us a comfort that no man can take from us a peace of conscience here and a crowne of glory in the world to come So we see how home this Prayer comes to all the whole Service of the day besides The Epistle 1 Pet. c. 2. v. 11 c. 11 My deerest I beseech you as strangers and pilgrimes to refraine your slves from carnal desires which war against the soule 12 Having your conversation good among the Gentiles that in that wherein they misreport of you as of Malefactors by the good works considering you they may glorifie God in the day of visitation 13 Be subject therefore to every humane creature for God whether it be to King as excelling 14 Or to Rulers as sent by him to the revenge of malefactors but to the praise of the good 15 For so is the will of God that doing well you may make the ignorance of unwise men to be dumb 16 As free and not as having the freedome for a cloak of malice but as the servants of God 17 Honour all men Love the Fraternity Feare God Honour the King 18 Servants be subject in all Feare to your Masters not onely to the good and modest but also to the wayward 19 For this is thank if for conscience of God a man sustaine sorrowes suffering unjustly The Explication 11. IT seemes there were in those dayes faigned devotes of women who under a pretence of piety intruded themselves very officiously into the company of Church-men but oftentimes it appeared their pretended piety was but carnality covered under a vizard of devotion and it is with speciall regard to such singularities and dangerous conversation with women that the Apostle here speakes both to Church-men to those women and to all good Christians in generall beseeching out of his humility though he might have commanded them that they never let fall the memory of their being but strangersâ— pilgrimes meere passengers upon this earth since they are members of Christ who as a stranger came into the world when at his first birth he was stranger-like cast out of doores and not allowed a place in any house to lay his head in so he was content to be borne in a manger that by this meanes he might shew us he came to looke us out who were stragled from Paradise banished thence indeed and made like strangers wander over all the world And seriously it is a deep word if well reflected on for Christians here to call themselves strangers since they have here no dwelling place but are Citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem and all their life time being as a pilgrimage through the desert of this wicked world The Apostle strongly perswades when he bids them take heed of setting their affections upon creatures here for how absurd were it if a pilgrim or passenger whose life lay at stake to be at such a place by such a time where he was promised a preferment should yet doat upon some miserable bondslave in the road and thereby not onely lose his way home but his preferment too and binde himselfe Prentice to an eternal bondage or slavery And the Apostle speakes all this very pathetically very briefely under the notion of carnall desires which are indeed the greatest enemies the soule hath and doe clap the Irons of captivity soonest and fastest upon her no vice so surely so speedily inthralling souls as carnality doth See therefore how strongly the Apostles charms under this notion of Pilgrim since the very name shews the nature of the man one that hath no right at all to any thing he sees one that even to ease his own labour makes it his study to keep his right road that longs for nothing more but to get home that for this purpose is content to toyl and moyl continually and never to take long rest that dares offend none he meets lest as a stranger all the natives rise against him to revenge the injury he did to any one of them That looks on all he meets as strangers to him since he knows himself so to them that gets ready tacklings for his tedious journey and casts off all things else as cumbersom that finding himself laught at by most he meets with especially all youth for the Exotick habit which he wears regards not their flouts nor scorn but bears them patiently Thus thus the Apostle exhorts all Christians to walk through the wilderness of this World Note by carnal desires which above all he bids them refrain he means all the works of the flesh all vice indeed gluttony as overloading venery as over-wasting anger as retarding while others in revenge stop his journey and so of all the other fleshly works as St. Paul enumerates them Gal. 5.19 which shall be explicated on the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost 12. Since by Gentiles here are understood all the Nations of the World the Apostle tyes up Christians to a very good and a close guard when he allows him not to use the least miscomportment before
our being by the word of truth begotten since the Apostle doth close this verse with telling us how to make our selves more apt to receive the word of truth into our soules or as who should say since wee are begotten voluntarily by the word of truth let us endeavor by all meanes to preserve in us this regeneration this inborne word in us this filiation to God this adoption to glory and by the name of uncleanness the Apostle here alludes to concupiscence drawing us from the life of this word unto the death of sinne by the name of malice hee alludes to the sinne of anger before inculcated as hindering our justice such as by meekness we produce in our selves and so preserve the inbred word our filiation to God which must be our finall salvation of our soules by taking in or receiving the ingraffed word is here meant keeping it for this was spoken to those who were already Christians and the allusion is pretty which is here made to a graft for as by ingrafting on the body of an Apple-tree the gardiner if he please brings forth a Plum or Peare so the word of God ingrafted into our soules brings forth the fruits of grace which are the Seeds of better fruit of glory if any aske what is this ingrafted word we may say it is God incarnate for his incarnation is as it were an ingrafting or inoculating God into the hearts or soules of men since as the graft is alwayes of a better kinde then the Stock it is ingrafted on so the Divinity is much more sweet and fertil then our sowre Crab of humane nature whereas by the Hypostaticall union God and man in Christ became one person as the Tree and the graft become one body when the Sap unites and cements them together againe as all grafts are first cut from their own homogeneall Stock before they be ingrafted into another so the second person of the Trinity was taken as it were out of the hosome of his eternal Father to be ingrafted in the wombe of the Blessed Virgin Mary and so was brought out of his heavenly to be planted in our earthly Paradise or rather wilderness indeed for such it was when he came downe to earth and as from the sowre Stock of a Crab-tree we must first cut a branch before we can ingraft a better fruit upon it so was there cut off from Christ his humane hypostasis and he made to subsist by the hypostasis divine besides as the graft and the Stock are bound together till they fasten into one another so by the hypostaticall union was the divine graft bound to our stock of humane nature that thereby God and man might grow into one person consisting of two natures others will have this ingrafted word to be the Blessed Sacrament united to our Soules others understand it to be Christ crucified on the Cross others contend it is the word of God ingrafted by the Preachers into the hearts of the Faithfull The Application 1. THe two first verses of this Epistle point directly at the gift of Faith which is indeed the Best and most perfect gift eminentially called the gift of God and is such a Light to our Reason as can come from none but the Father of Lights in it selfe the Blessed Trinity but as to us we may say it comes from the Father of our Light that is of our Faith our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath indeed voluntarily begotten us by the word of Truth the Holy Writ the Record of our Faith whereby we have our first beginnings of being God Almighties creatures 2. The two next verses tell us with what Alacrity and Promptitude we should hear this Sacred word of God as also with what Patience we should bear the Rebukes and Checks it gives our Consciences when it reprehends our vices In plaine termes we are told that to be Angry at any holy reprehension is an evident signe of our not being Right beleevers since by our operative Faith we are made just as we have often been taught and nothing is less consistent with justice then Anger 3. The last verse tels us what effects Faith ought to work in us namely Purity Love and Meekness for without these we are not capable of saving our soules by the ingafted word of God in us which yet of it self is sufficient to save us if received with that Purity which renounceth all mixture of Heresie Schisme or Infidelity for these are the Obstructions to the unity of minds which Faith worketh in the soules of true beleevers making them therefore all of one minde because they are all of one pure and impermixed Faith such as is only in the Catholicke Church and the effect whereof is to make them therefore love even the hardest commands of that good God they do beleeve in and to covet ardently what he promiseth unto them in requitall of their love who amongst all the allurements in this world fix their hearts only upon heavenly joyes which are promised in the next world not on such shadowes of joyes as we possess here in a word not to fix their hearts upon our present loanes but upon our future promises for God here doth not properly give us any thing how ever he lends us all we have his gifts are for eternall enjoyment not for temporary uses onely Now that we may doe this see how fitly Holy Church Prayes as above The Gospel John 16. v. 5 c. 5 But I told you not these things from the beginning because I was with you And now I goe to him that sent me and none of you asketh me whither goest thou 6 But because J have spoken these things to you sorrow hath filled your hearts 7 But J tell you the truth it is expedient for you that I goe for if I goe not the Paraclete shall not come to you but if I goe J will send him to you 8 And when he is come he shall argue the world of sinne and of Iustice and of Iudgement 9 Of sinne because they beleeve not in me 10 But of Justice because I goe to my Father and now you shall not see me 11 And of judgement because the Prince of this world is now judged 12 Yet many things I have to say to you but you cannot bear them now 13 But when hee the spirit of truth commeth hee shall teach you all truth for hee shall not speake of himselfe but what things soever he shall heare he shal speake and the things that are to come he shall shew 14 He shall glorifie me because he shall receive of mine and shall shew to you The Explication 5. TO understand what the Apostle meanes in this verse we must know the meaning of the foregoing words and though many wil have these things to report unto what went before namely our Saviours having told them they should be persecuted and punished to death for his sake after he was gone which he told them of that when it
shewing him the features and deformities of his soule according as he is truly in himselfe good or bad for that is the property of a glass to represent truly the object which is set before it and the Apostle in effect here says those that run to Churches or to their ghostly Fathers to hear onely what they say and do not put in execution their Counsels are like a man note t is not said a woman too too frequently looking there seeing his native his natural countenance not then his painted face in a glaâ—s for what indeed follows of this meer sight nothing but what is said in the next Verse forgetfulness which cannot tend to perfection and such an introspection men make into their souls by reading or hearing the word of God if there they persist and do not study to perfect themselves thereby and truly the Law or Word of God is rightly called a Glass because it represents to us that image of perfect creatures which God would have us to be it tells us what reward our Vertues shall have what punishment our Vices 24. The reason why a man sooner forgets his own face then anothers is because he never sees his own but by reflected Species in a Glass which are therefore weaker and less vigorous then if they came directly to his eye as those of another mans countenance do both directly and more frequently seen by any man then his own So no wonder if a man see and consider himself never so exactly for a time that he soon forgets himself and covets to see himself again whereas he much more perfectly remembers the Face and Features of anothers person then his own Now though it be needless for a man to look much into a material Glass which can onely shew him the outward man yet it is very recommendable for him to look into the spiritual Glass of Gods Word to read or hear that often thereby to see what is wanting to that ornament of Grace or Vertue which should render him a perfect image of our Saviour Jesus Christ but besides this often looking on himself he must be doing and practising upon himself namely adding this Vertue taking away that Vice or else he onely looks and forgets what he see or what he should make himself to be Note there are three kindes of hearers of Gods word the lazy the active the contemplative the first heare onely and forget indeed contemne the next heare and obey the third heare and dye imbracing it with all the powers of their soules and never let goe their imbracement again many are the Analogies betweene a glass and the word of God for first as in a glass is seene not a picture of a thing but the thing it selfe by a reflected species though not by a direct one soe by the word is seene the wil of God nay God himself since the word of the minde is seene by the word of the mouth as in a glass Againe as flat or plaine glasses represent the species equall to the object but convex or round glasses represent them less then they are and both the further off the weaker they represent them so the word of God plainly sincerely and without any crooked intention hearkened unto or read represents truly the will of God unto us but if we make this word a convex glass one swollen up with a bulk of pride or ambition to wrest it to our crooked senses then it represents the wil of God abridged shortned or lessened not entirely and plainely as it is in it selfe whence preachers must learne to be sincere and faithfull in the exposition of holy writ Againe as concave or hollow glasses placed against the Sun are apt to cast a heat and burne whatsoever combustible matter is neere them so the word of God looked on with an humble eye a dinted heart wherein it makes the hollow of a sweet impression sets on fire all the inordinate appetites to sinne burns up all the stubble of vicious inclinations and renders a soule burning bright in flames of love to Almighty God 25. By this verse it is cleer that the word of God is the glass here alluded unto because the Law of perfect liberty is that word of God the Law and life of Jesus Christ whereby we are made children of God not slaves to empty ceremonies onely as they under the slavish Law of Moses were he that hath looked fixedly not slightly into the glass of perfect liberty and hath remained in it not made a forgetfull hearer this man shall be blessed in his deed because his deed shal deserve a blessing by being such as this glass represents it should be note by perfect liberty is not here understood liberty to doe what we list so we beleeve aright as Luther hence pretended but first by liberty is here understood that which freeth us from the servility of the Mosaical Law next that which freeth us from the slavery to sinne and the devil thirdly that which freeth us from compulsion or feare but leaves us free to doe wel out of pure love to God not for fear of hel fourthly that liberty which by resurrection we shal have from death when we arise to life everlasting further by the close of this verse saying that man shall be blessed in his deed is meant he shal have the blessing here of grace in the next world of glory and that his blessing shal be given to his doing not to his contemplating what is to be done 26. By this place Saint James alludes to what he said in the nineteenth verse of this Epistle of being quick to heare and slow to speak and not to be angry for by the laxity of the tongue the hands are as it were tyed up from action and those men seldom do wel that are alwayes talking or vaunting in many words the little good they doe in deeds so that one kinde of doing the Law is a religious silence for religion imports as much as a binding up of the Law which consisteth in observing or doing it not in talking of it by the word bridling our tongues is insinuated as if the tongue were an unruly beast alwayes running away from reason unless bridled in thereby by seducing his heart is understood making it erre for a talking man seldome deceives others but often himselfe since they see the sin of petulance in his heart and so regard as little what he saith as himself doth what he speaks who is never doing wel whilest he speaketh too much or ill and such a mans religion is truly vaine by religion is here understood either that vertue of religion which makes a man render all his actions good towards God and his neighbor and is the first of moral vertues as charity is the first of divine ones or true Christianity profession of the true faith for even that is vaine if it be not made avayling by good workes annexed thereunto though here the Apostle his genuine sense is
heart so hidden from others that lyes not open to the owner of it who can justly accuse himself of often making his seeming good actions causes of his own damnation whilest he even persecutes Almighty God under a pretext of serving him O sincerity of heart where art thou far from the lip that beggs it Matth. 14. v. 8. as now all Christians ought with the mother Church to do And in this case it fares with us as it did with those of whom we reade Esay 25.13 This people honours me with their lips while their heart is far off from me But could we by this hearty Prayer so convert our hearts to God as to obtain these two Vertues onely Devotion in our Wills and Sincerity in our Hearts we should need no other Ceremony to Saint us what ere were requisite besides to Canonize us nor is this Prayer lesse proper to the service of the day then to the mystery of our Lords Ascension though I confess the root of their connexions lies too deep for every one to finde it out at first but while Saint Peter bids us in his Epistle above all things love one another he sweetly tells us the non sincerity of our hearts is rooted there and that we cannot sincerely love God whom we do not see unless we do sincerely love each other with whom we daily do converse Again he tells us Charity covers a multitude of sins 1 Pet. 1. v. 22. as who should say whilest we pray for sincerity of heart we pray for charity and having that Vertue we not onely cover all our Vices but rise up with it as high as Heaven and then we speak as if we spake the words of God then we honour and serve God in all thingâ— with perfect devotion of our wills and sincerity of our hearts when we serve each other with such subjection as if in every Christian we had Christ to serve and this which is a more neer serving him even at the gates of Heaven where now he is and where we must always attend him for our happy entrance so soon as our willâ— are truly devoted and our hearts sincerely bent unto his service which then the Gospel of this day tells us they will be when taking them off from all terrene contents we set them upon an expectation of higher comforts of heavenly consolations from the Paraclete the Holy Ghost who is comming down upon us to give us all content indeed to testifie the truth of all our Saviours Doctrine and to give us grace not onely to bear patiently all severest persecutions but even to take content to dye for Jesus Christ who pleased to dye for us and not to be scandailzed when the wicked persecute the just under pretence of serving God therein since our Saviour did Apologize for them saying They knew not what they did when they butchered him upon the Altar of the Cross and since he further tells us by St. John to day the wicked will do the same to us we must remembring what he â—aid seek to conform our will to his and to serve him by our patient suffering greatest persecutions with all sincerity of heart which that we may perform we pray to day as above suitably to what our Pastors preach and can we by so praying do so too then are we risen high as heaven-gates with Jesus Christ The Epistle on Sunday within the Octaves of the Ascension 1 Pet. 4. v. 7 c. 7 And the end of all things shall approach Be wise therefore and watch in Prayers 8 But before all things having mutuall charity continuall among your selves because charity covereth the multitude of sins 9 Vsing hospitality one toward another without murmuring 10 Every one as he hath received grace ministring the same one toward another as good dispensers of the manifold grace of God 11 If any man speak as the words of God if any man minister as of the power which God admistreth That in all thingt God may be honoured by Jesus Christ The Explication 7 THe end of all shall come This doth not report to judgement but rather to the end of all those unlawfull pleasures which the Apostle found the Gentiles prone unto as beleeving that after death there was no more remaining to be said or done and consequently since they must have a total end by death both of body and soule they were resolved here to indulge unto themselves all they could and not to lose any pleasure they were able to purchase while they lived To these he sayes the end of all shall come meaning of all you can here delight in and yet you will finde there is not an end of your being by your death but as your actions while you live are lyable to the judgement and scanning of men so shall your souls when your bodies are dead be lyable to another manner of judgement so he bids them be wise and take onely lawful pleasures for they shall be called to an account of their unlawful ones when they least thinke of it who dyed in that heresie of Gentilisme believing the soule to be mortal as the body was But indeed the end which the Apostle here meanes is most properly that which is now actually come namely the last age of the world which is that of Christ and Christians as who should say the world hath stood now six ages compleat and is entered into the seventh which is the last The first age was from Adam to Noe and his flood The second from Noe to Abraham the third from Abraham to Moses the fourth from Moses to David the fifth from David to the captivity of Babylon the sixth from that captivity to Christs coming the seventh and last from Christ to the latter day of judgement whence Saint John 1. Epist C. 1. v. 15. Sayes Beloved this is the last houre and Saint Paul 1. ad Cor. 10. v. 11. These things are written for our correction in whom the worlds ends are found meaning six ages of the world are past in us and now the seventh age flowes away apace Be therefore saith Saint Peter alluding to this sense wise or prudent and so live every one of you now as if you were to close the actions of all the ages gone before you and to carry away a blessed Crown of glory with you if you make your selves secure of your happy end by leading a holy life so long as here you live For in every one of you the whole world hath an end since this is the last age of it and since it is the end that Crowns the worke he bids us be wise and watching pray that our end may be here holy to make our happiness endless in the life to come which is to have no end and here the Apostle mindful of his own error bids us take heed we fall not into the same who remembers he fell asleep when Jesus prayed in the garden and to that sleeping he imputes his revolting from his
Verse of the Gospel is Preparative to the Apostles both to Love and Hope That as he dy'd for love to them so they should be content to dye for love of him and for the Hope of Heaven Especially when they remember he that foretold their Sorrows told them of the Joyes they should beget such as no man should deprive them of such as no time should ever waste O how apt an exercise is it for Christians now to Hope and Love Which that they may do they are fitly taught to pray present as above FINIS THE END Of the Second PART On the first Sunday in Lent The Prayer O God who dost purifie thy Church with an annuall observation of Lent grant unto thy family that what it endeavoureth to obtaine of thee by fasting it may finish the same by good workes The Secret WE solemnely immolate the sacrifice of our Lenten beginnings beseeching thee O Lord that together with the restraint of our fleshly feastings we may temper also our harmefull pleasures The Post-Communion MAy O Lord the holy tasting of thy Sacrament restore us purged of the old creature make us pass into the fellowship of this saving mystery On the second Sunday in Lent The Prayer O God who doest behold us voyd of all strength guard us we beseech thee exteriourly and interiourly that we may be defended from all corporal Adversity and purified from the evil contagions of our souls The Secret APpeased we beseech thee O Lord to intend unto these present sacrifices that they may both further our Devotion and our Salvation too The Post-Communion VVE humbly beseech thee Almighty God that whom thou hast refreshed with thy Sacraments those thou wilt gracious grant to serve thee with their good behaviours On the third Sunday of Lent The Prayer VVE beseech thee Almighty God look down on the desires of thy humble people and extend the right hand of thy Majesty in our defence The Secret MAy this Hoste O Lord cleanse we beseech thee our offences and sanctifie the Bodies and Souls of thy Subjects for the offering this Sacrifice unto thee The Post-Communion VVE pray thee O Lord mercifully to absolve us from all our guilts and dangers since thou hast made us partakers of so great a Mystery On the fourth Sunday of Lent 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 Secret VVE beseech thee O Lord vouchsafe appeased to be intent unto our present Sacrifices to the end they may advance both our Devotion and our Salvation too The Post-Communion GRant unto us we beseech thee O merciful God that we may Celebrate with sincere Duty and always with faithful Souls receive thy Sacraments wherewith we are incessantly replenished On Passion Sunday The Prayer VVE beseech thee Almighty God propitiously behold thy Family that thou giving we may be governed in Body and thou reserving we may be preserved in Soul The Secret VVE beseech thee O Lord that these thy Gifts may unloose the fetters of our Iniquity and restore us to the Gifts of thy mercy The Post-Communion O Lord our God be present with us and whom thou hast recreated with thy Mysteries defend with thy perpetual Supplies On Palme Sunday The Prayer OMnipotent everlasting God who hast caused our Saviour to take humane Flesh upon him and be crucified for mankinde to imitate the example of his Humility grant propitiously that we may deserve to have both the instructions of his Patience and the fellowship of his Resurrection The Secret GRant we beseech thee O Lord that the offering we have made in the eyes of thy Majesty may obtain us the favour of Devotion and acquire unto us the effect of a blessed Eternity The Post-Communion BY the operation O Lord of this Mystery may our sins be purged away and our just desires be accomplished On Easter day The Prayer O God who this day by thy onely begotten Sonne hast opened unto us the doore of eternity by the destruction of death prosecute we beseech thee in us these good desires which thou preventing hast afforded us The Secret REceive we beseech thee O Lord the Prayers of thy people with the oblations of their Hosts that the entrance into these Paschall mysteries by thy contrivance may availe us for a help to our eternity The Post-Communion POure into us O Lord the Spirit of thy love that whom thou hast filled with Paschall Sacraments thou maist make them by thy Piety unanimous On Low Sunday The Prayer GRant we beseech thee Almighty God that we who have accomplished the Paschall Feasts may retaine the same in our manners and lives by thy bounty inabling us so to doe The Secret ACcept we beseech thee O Lord the offerings of thy exulting Church and to whom thou hast given cause of so great joy grant the fruit of perpetuall mirth The Post-Communion WE beseech thee O Lord God that these sacred mysteries which for the security of our reparation thou hast bestowed upon us may be made both a present and a future help unto us On the second Sunday after Easter The Prayer O God who by the humble abasement of thine own Son hast raised up the prostrate world grant we beseech thee unto thy faithfull people perpetuall joy that they whom thou hast taken out of the danger of eternall death may injoy perpetuall felicity The Secret MAy this ever sacred oblation confer upon us a wholsome benediction that what it doth in mystery it may perfect in power The Post-Communion GRant unto us wee beseech thee Almighty God that receiving the favour of thy inlivening we may alwayes boast of thy bounty On the third Sunday after Easter The Prayer O God who unto those that goe astray to the end they may returne into the way of Justice dost shew them the light of thy verity grant unto all those who by profession are esteemed Christians that they may both eschew those things which are contrary to this name and pursue those which are agreeable unto the same The Secret BE it granted unto us O Lord by these mysteries that mitigating terrene desires wee may learne to love heavenly things The Post-Communion THe Sacraments which we have received wee beseech thee O Lord that they may repaire us with spirituall food and defend us with corporall helps On the fourth Sunday after Easter The Prayer O God who makest the mindes of the faithfull to be of one accord grant unto thy people that they may love what thou commandest and desire what thou doest promise that amongst worldly varieties there we may fix our hearts where are true Joyes The Secret O God who hast made us partakers of the highest Deity by the commerce of this revered sacrifice grant we beseech thee that as we know thy verity so we may with meet behaviour follow the same The Post-Communion VOuchsafe us O Lord God thy presence that by these
Illumination of his holy Spirit and was to make the often dead letter of that word to be the life of our Souls for so it must needs be when it brings us that peace which it promiseth namely another manner of peace then the world giveth which is alwayes mixed with war for whoever relisheth what is right hath a true peace within his conscience and so is at no variance or war at all In a word the Gospel being out of the story of our Saviours Life tells us the effect of this fact the fruit we shall receive by the coming of the Holy Ghost by relishing those things that are right and by rejoycing in the consolation of this holy Spirit that comes to read lessons of Divine Love unto our hearts and to wean us from the humane affections we have unto creatures and consequently this Gospel wants no adjusting to the Epistle and Prayer of this solemn day but makes good still our main design in this book The Epistle Acts 2.1 c. 1 And when the dayes of Pentecost were accomplished they were all together in one place 2 And suddenly there was made a sound from heaven as of a vehement wind coming and it filled the whole house where they were sitting 3 And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire and it sate upon every one of them 4 And they were all replenished with the Holy Ghost and they began to speak with divers tongues according as the holy Ghost gave them to speak 5 And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jewes devout men of every nation under heaven 6 And when this voyce was made the multitude came together and was astonied in mind because every man heard them speak in his own Tongue 7 And they were all amazed and marvelled saying Are not loe all these that speak Galilaeans 8 And how have we heard each man our own tongue wherein we were born 9 Parthians and Medians and Elamites and that inhabite Mesopotamia Jewrie and Cappadocia Pontus and Asia 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia Aegypt and the parts of Lybia that is about Cyrenee and strangers of Rome 11 Jewes also and Proselytes Cretensians and Arabians we have heard them speak in our own tongues the great works of God The Explication 1. THat is to say Fifty dayes after the Resurrection for as the Christian Pasche is a fulfilling that Feast of the Jews which was a figure thereof so likewise the Christian Pentecost is a fulfilling of the like figure of the Jewish Pentecost or of the delivery of the Law upon Mount Sinai by the like confirmation of the Christian Law upon the Mount Sion when the holy Ghost descended purposely for that end But as the Jewish Pasche was on Saturday which was their Sabbath so was the seventh Saturday after their Pentecost and the Christian Pasche being the day after which was Sunday makes the seventh Sunday following to be the Christian Pentecost both to shew Christ did abrogate the Jewish Sabbath by rising on Sunday and the Jewish Pentecost by sending the holy Ghost the seventh Sunday after which proves that the Christian Religion as it was successive to the Jewish so it did abrogate the same By those that were here in the place of the last Supper assembled we are not to understand onely the Twelve Apostles but also the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the rest of the Disciples and friends of Christ then in Jerusalem to the number of about one hundred and twenty as S. Luke recounts and S. Augustine gives a very pious reason for this number saying What Christ did promise onely to his twelve Apostles he performs into a ten-fold multiplyed number for ten times twelve make just one hundred and twenty so Christ to shew his liberality made his promise good ten times over and indeed it is usuall in Almighty God to better the expectation of his creatures 2. The mystery of this noise or sound was that thereby the Jews might come together out of curiosity to see what the matter was when they heard a sudden clap like thunder just over the place where the Apostles were assembled and likewise to raise up the hearts of those within the place to heaven expecting hereupon something of consequence to follow it was sudden for two reasons First to shew it to be a voluntary and free gift of grace such as could not be merited by any our previous preparation thereunto Secondly to shew the efficacy of that holy grace working to all purposes in an instant as we see it did in S. Paul and S. Mary Magdalene both instantaneously converted from notorious sinners and made eminent Saints whence S. Ambrose sayes truly commenting upon the first of S. Luke The grace of the holy Ghost brooks no delayings This sudden sound came from heaven to shew that as Gods throne was there so he came by his holy grace to call and to carry the Apostles and all good Christians thither it came like a huge high wind to shew the effects it was to have when the voices of those it sell upon were heard all the world over from one end to the other as was prophetically foretold by holy David Psal 18. Now we are to note the holy Ghost hath appeared severall times in severall wayes as first like a Pigeon or Dove upon Christ baptized to shew the columbine simplicity of grace and good works next like a Cloud in the Transfiguration to shew the fertility of Christian Doctrine falling like a fruitfull rain upon the barren souls of men and covering them from the nocive sinne of lustfull desires Thirdly like a Breath to shew the manner of Christian conversion was to be by aspiration or breathing of the holy Ghost upon our hearts and giving us thence a spirituall life and this was when at the last Supper Christ breathing upon his Apostles said Receive ye the holy Ghost to remission of sinnes Joh. 20.22 Fourthly as here both like fire and wind the first to shew the holy Ghost did inflame the hearts of men to the love of God and burn up in them all the stubble of their terrene affections the last to shew the efficacy that the Apostles preaching should have to convert all the world and like a whirl-wind blow down the resistance of Princes and Potentates as so many Towers standing in their way and also blow all infidelity all heresie all sects and schisms quite away as so much chaff and drosse in respect of solid doctrine not that there was a reall wind but yet a reall sound or rather an effect as of a reall wind for had the wind been reall being so great it had overthrown the house and done mischief to those within and indeed the Text saith it was a noise like the coming of a high winde nor was it marvell God could produce a sound without a winde for as the fiery tongues were not reall tongues but onely similitudes thereof so was this noise no reall wind but onely a likenesse of it
Fishermen knowing and learned Doctours Teachers in fine to all the World convincers and confounders of all humane Learning that stood in opposition to their doctrine Divine and all this in an instant without learning any other Lesson then to dilate to open the affections of their Hearts unto the Holy Ghost where by the Illustration of his holy Grace he reads unto them in a moment all Divinity by onely teaching them the Art of Divine Love by onely giving them indeed the grace to love God only and what is lovely in the eyes of his heavenly Majesty Stay beloved if this be all why may not we hope once a year at least to learn as good a lesson 'T is but renewing every year as on this blessed Day the solemn vowes we made in Holy Baptisme 't is but reiterating now those good purposes we make some times of the amendment of our lives 't is but dilating and opening our hearts to this holy Spirit and begging of him that he will there work in us what we cannot work our selves the new creation of a new Will in us by our renunciation of the old and this by the Illustration of his holy Grace which alone is able to light and lead us up to heaven which alone is able to teach us all Truth and afford us all the comfort that our Hearts can wish The Holy Church would otherwise surely pray to day for some thing else which yet she doth not in the Prayer above The Gospel JOHN 14. v. 23 c. 23 Jesus answered and said unto them If any love me he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and will make abode with him 24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my words And the word which you heard is not mine but his that sent me the Fathers 25 These things have I spoken to you abiding with you 26 But the Paraclete the holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and suggest unto you all things whatsoever I shall say unto you 27 Peace I leave to you my peace I give to you not as the world giveth do I give to you Let not your heart be troubled nor fear 28 You have heard that I said to you I go and I come to you If you loved me you would be glad verily that I go to the Father because the Father is greater then I. 29 And now I have told you before it come to passe that when it shall come to passe you may believe 30 Now I will not speak many things to you For the Prince of this world cometh and in me he hath not any thing 31 But that the world may know that I love the Father and as the Father hath given me commandement so do I. Arise let us go hence The Explication 23. THis answer of our Saviour was to the interrogatory of the Apostle Judas Thaddaeus the brother to St. James the lesser demanding ver 22. why Christ was pleased to manifest himself to the Apostles onely and not to the whole world because he said to them The world doth not see me but ye see me which though spoken in the present tense was meant in the future alluding to what the Apostles did after see in him namely his Passion Death Resurrection and Ascension And the reason why he did manifest himself to them and not to the world was as St. Austin observes because they did love him but the world did not so and this I premise to shew that what followes here alludes to this as to the effects which the love of God procures in those that do truly love him as this Gospel begins to day with an effect of love keeping Gods commandements which taken as here it lyes in this Gospel is rather an absolute assertion then a relative answer to a question and yet in truth it was the answer that Christ gave to the question of St. Jude as above in the immediate verse before whereunto Jesus answers saying If any love me he will keep my word as who should say as I loving my Father keep his command of coming into this world to manifest his glory to you that love him and by you to all the world though not immediately to them all as I mean to do to you So do not think that after my Resurrection when the Holy Ghost shall come down and inflame the hearts of many Infidels and Gentiles with the love of God that then I shall onely manifest my self to you alone that are my Apostles and now are onely those that love me no no then I shall be so manifested to others that they will love me as you do and this shall be the testimony that I give you thereof that their love shall be such as by vertue thereof they will keep my Commands my words will be to them dear as now they are to you and as you receiving the holy Ghost receive with him both my Self and my Father for we three are all one inseparable Substance or Essence however distinct and several Persons just so shall the whole Blessed and undivided Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost enter into the hearts of all that love me and keep my Commandments or my word and consequently to them as well as to you shall I be then manifested And in this sense you see this verse is an exact answer to the question of S. Jude which otherwise seems a meer disparate or an incongruous reply to that interrogatory And from hence we may perceive how hard it is to understand the true sense of almost any part of holy Writ unlesse we see clearly the connexion it hath to precedent or consequent parts thereof so what S. Jude meant of his personal or visible manifestation to these few onely that were eye-witnesses of his Actions he means of his spiritual or invisible beeing made known to all the world by his Faith and doctrine received and embraced amongst them through the preaching of the Apostles and their Successours But we must note that coming or going of God who is at all times in all places by reason of his immensity is not to be understood as if he did come or go from one place to another but he therefore is said to come or go because he operates or operates not at all times or in all places alike for his operation is his coming and so every new inspiration of grace we have is as if God made a new visite unto us within the temple of our soules where he delights to be and though he be never separated from us locally since he fills all place yet he is said to come a new into our hearts every time we produce or exercise a new act of love unto him and if we continue one Act all our lives then he doth all that time operate within us and so consequently is said not only to come unto us but even to live with us to
dwell indeed within us which happinesse we cannot receive from any one single Person of the Blessed Trinity but we must own it to them All three since where one Person is of necessity there all the three Divine Persons are also be it by presence or by operation 24. Here we see clearly the cause of our well doing or keeping Gods commands is our loving God and consequently the cause of our not doing well is our not loving him to which purpose St. Gregory hom 30. sayes excellently well To know whether we love God or not ask our Tongues if they speak well of him ask our souls if they imploy their thoughts upon him ask our lives if our actions be directed to his honour and glory if they be doing what he hath commanded or avoiding what he hath forbidden When he sayes The word he speaks is not his the meaning is 't is not onely his but also his Fathers because himself is the word of his Father and consequently as his nature is common with him and his Father so is his operation too wherefore what he sayes to us his Father sayes to him because all he is himself is to be his Fathers word 25. These things have I spoken to you abiding with you while I was with you I told you these things not that they abide by you or that you understand them but it sufficeth for the present I tell them to you though you understand them not you will penetrate these and much more when the holy Ghost shall telling you the same confirm you that he and I are both one God one Spirit one Goodnesse one Truth 26. It may seem strange here that Christ sayes his Father shall send the Holy Ghost to them in his name whereas Chap. 15. the same Evangelist tells us that he said he would send them the same holy Spirit himself in his Fathers name but the very truth is these two seeming several speeches are both to one and the same purpose for as the Holy Ghost doth proceed both from the Father and the Son one coequal Spirit and God with them both so is he equally sent by them both whence these are not contradicting but cohering Truths telling at several times what is most certain true But there are divers senses of these words in my name as first the Father is said to send the Holy Ghost in his Sons name as by the Sons means whose spiration as it is joyntly concurring with the Fathers to the procession of the Holy Ghost so by him joyntly with him the Father sends the Holy Ghost unto us Secondly in his name imports in vertue of his merits deserving for us the happinesse of this comfortable mission or missive comforter Thirdly in his name is as much as to say in his place to supply his visible presence by an invisible comfort equal thereunto that he may finish the work of humane salvation which Christ began and hence it followes he shall teach you all things namely to understand what Jesus told you and what he will have you further to know for establishing his Church over all the world and he shall suggest and prompt to you all things whatsoever I shall say This place is liable to several senses as whether the holy Spirit shall suggest more unto them for government of the Church then Christ told them because he spake much which they could not then understand or whether his suggestion shall onely be an exposition of what they heard before and were not able to penetrate the bottome of it but truly the last sense seemes most genuine because of that which followes namely his suggesting what Christ shall say what he hath unintelligibly already said and shall afterwards intelligibly by the Holy Ghost say unto them yet this sense may be verified though we do not take suggestion to be as a help to understanding but to memory as generally the Expositours conceive of it as if the suggestion of the holy Ghost were a renewing the memory of the Apostles towards calling to mind and upon recalling better understanding the meaning of what Christ had said then they did when they heard him speak what was now revived in their memory by the prompting or suggestion of the Holy Ghost But since in other places the Expositours have declared Christ did not tell the Apostles all that which he meant they should do by the instinct of the Holy Gbost especially for framing and maintaining the Hierarchy of the Church nor for expounding the mysteries of Faith therefore if we take here this suggestion in a larger sense then generally Expositours do we shall not erre as if we extend it to the holy Ghost prompting unto them what our Saviour shall say to him and by him to them now that he is in heaven for as Christ sayes his doctrine is not his own but his heavenly Fathers so it is certain the suggestions of the holy Ghost are not his own but Christ his doctrine whether delivered before by himself and so renewed in the memory of the Apostles by the holy Ghost as all Expositours allow or whether now onely spoken immediately to the Holy Ghost by Christ and by mediation of that holy Spirit to us for assuredly there are many things especially concerning government of the holy Church suggested by the Holy Ghost to the now present Governours thereof which were not spoken by Christ to his Apostles 27. By Christ his peace is here meant that which St. Paul Philip. 4. told us did exceed all humane sense and this he calls his so peculiarly as indeed it can be properly no bodies else but his own since he hath purchased it for us by his having ended all our war with sin death and the devil all such war as can indanger us if our selves be not cowards and cease to fight for this assurance we have as long as we fight we conquer and in conquering possesse that peace which by the Battel of temptation the devill sought to wrest away from us that sweetnesse that tranquillity of soul which a good conscience bringeth with it at all times and to all persons whatsoever This is the peace Christ gave and this he gives not as the world gives peace which is rather perturbation for the more we have of worldly peace and ease the lesse we have of true tranquillity of mind which is then most perfect when we are most at strife with the world and other enemies to Christian peace St. Augustine hath an excellent saying to this purpose He cannot be at peace with Christ who hath any contention with a Christian who is a member of him But the most genuine sense of this place is that he gave the Apostles his own peace immunity from all sin which onely can be the breach of peace with God And therefore he closed this verse with these words let not your heart be troubled at my going from you the presence of my peace shall supply for the absence of my
up sitting at this feast into the great presence-chamber of the sacred Trinity the Empyreall heaven and after his Ascension his servants the Apostles went round about the world to invite more and to tell them the great supper of glory was now ready for all that would go to it such way as thâ—se inviters would lead them namely in the high rode of professing and observing the faith and law of Christ 18. By all excusing themselves is here literally understood the Jewish nation whose eye was no further bent upon religion then as they expected a Messias that should make them all rich so grosly they understood the heavenly riches promised by the Messias as they believed them to be temporall estates And therefore here the first excuse is made by plea of necessity to looke after worldly wealth represented by the purchased village which was said to be newly bought by him that was content to sell the kingdom of heaven for a patch of earth But Saint Gregory hom 36. in Evang. notes the ill manners of this civility when the excusant sayes I pray thee have me excused for he calls it pride in the action though it seems humility in the voyce because he disdained heaven and preferred earth 19. The second excuse insists upon an other notable addiction of the Jewes to worldly wealth namely their huge great stocks they gloried in upon their grounds which we read Abraham Isaack Jacob and Job abounded in and which were looked on as the greatest blessings God could give so in regard of earthly stocks of Cattle they contemned the greater stock of Glory in the next world But St. Gregory in the place last cited will have these five yoak of oxen allude to our five senses distracting us from all heavenly objects 20. St. Gregory cited as above understands this place of carnall sinne the greatest impediment between a soul and glory of all others for here the excuser askes no pardon but boldly sayes he cannot come it seems he that could not wish he were able was wholly unable as well as he was absolutely unwilling while he did not say he would come another time as the former excuses might import but absolutely professed he could not come he had sure as little will as power and therefore he might have added he neither could nor would Though others more favourably say this place alludes onely to the excessive use of the lawfull marriage-bed which then is used in excesse when it is made a pretence to hinder us from the service of Almighty God And S. Ambrose expresseth much to this sense in few words saying The love of earthly things is like a birdlime upon the spirituall wings of our souls hindring her flight up to heaven But S. Augustine applies these three excuses to the three things that include all sorts of worldly pelf concupiscence of the flesh concupiscence of the eye and pride of life The first excuse reports to the pride that man had to see himself Lord of a Mannour The second to concupiscence of the eye to see a rich stock of cattell cover his grounds The third to concupiscence of the flesh that made this his excuse from going to heaven as if he did not hope for greater pleasure there and indeed riches and pleasure are the chief impediments mortalls have between them and eternall blisse 21. This place of the Parable alludes to Christ speaking of himself as servant to his heavenly Father and telling him the Rich men of the Jewes were all so transported with the love of the world as they gave no ear to the invitation of the eternal word calling them to everlasting rest and glory and that then his Father bid him apply himself to the poorer sort of Jewes which to effect was done when S. Matthew Chap. 21. 31. sayes to the Pharisees Scribes Doctours and high Priests rejecting Christ The Publicanes and whores shall go before you in the Kingdome of God as also the last shall be first and the first the last Others think this verified in the choyce Christ made of Fisher-men for his Apostles and of other poor Mechanicks rather then of Scribes and Pharisees as 1 Cor. 1.27 God chose the infirm things of this world to confound all the strength thereof and fooles to confound wise men and this to encourage the most contemptible creatures on the earth to aym at as great riches as heaven can afford if they live according to the rule and law of Christ 22. And here our Saviour urgeth his heavenly Father since all the poor people amongst the Jewes are not able to fill up the Court of heaven that as yet there may be more invited and then he went aside from the Jewes to the Samaritans and Gentiles converting them and so inviting of them to his heavenly Glory which is the Supper here spoken of 23. But we are here to note that Christ looked upon these Gentiles in respect of his beloved people the Jewes as he would do upon men that have no poor beeings in Townes or Villages but are forced to shelter themselves under the banks on high wayes and to covet the loane of hedges for their shelter from winds and weather and therefore being himself after his resurrection to ascend to heaven he sent his Apostles over all the world to find out such poor Gentiles as these who in respect of the Jewes were not held worthy in Gods sight to be esteemed as Masters of Townes Villages or houses but were like vagabonds yet these not filling heaven neither see how he makes provision for relapsed Christians also as men equally miserable with such vagabonds and those he will have by Ecclesiastical censures nay by penal lawes to be even compelled or forced to return to their belief again which yet is not a course used to any but revolted Christians such as once were in the lap of the true Church by holy Baptisme and they indeed as having once been children and Subjects of the mother Church of Christ may upon revolt be compelled back again whereas Pagans Jewes or Infidels cannot be thus forced by penal lawes but must in a sweet way be gained to a right belief through perswasion not compulsion 24. This verse is onely the excluding those from eternal glory who being invited to it will not leave temporal riches and pleasures to purchase the Kingdome of heaven but willingly wallow in the mire of worldly wealth rather then they will leave that to enjoy eternal felicity and glory The Application 1. AS this Gospel in the sense of the Expositours alludes to the Blessed Sacrament whose Feast is now flowing so is it fit we should observe therein such lessons as we are bound to learn and put in execution for our more worthy receiving which we may for brevity sake reduce to two the one a reverential awe or holy fear of unworthinesse the other a fervent act of love and charity because in this Sacrament is not onely the body and bloud of
as above The Gospel Luk. 15. v. 1. c. 1 And there approached Publicans and sinners unto him for to hear him 2 And the Pharisees and the Scribes murmured saying that this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them 3 And he spake to them this parable saying 4 What man of you having an hundred sheep and if he hath lost one of them doth he not leave the ninetie and nine in the desert and goeth after that which is lost untill he find it 5 And when he hath found it layeth it upon his shoulders rejoycing 6 And coming home calleth together his friends and neighbours saying to them Rejoyce with me because I have found my sheep that was lost 7 I say to you that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth pennance then upon ninety nine just persons that need not pennance 8 Or what woman having ten groates if shee loose one groat doth she not light a candle and sweepe the house and seeke diligently untill she finde 9 And when she hath found calleth together her friends and neighbours saying Rejoyce with me because I have found the groat which I had lost 10 So I say to you there shall be joy before the Angels of God upon one sinner that doth pennance The Explication 1. O That we sinners would approach also to hear him in his preachers and teachers who declare his will and word unto us 2. Note the pride of these people who having a law not to touch any foul beast much lesse to eat it disdain also to come near foul souls to cleanse them and murmure at our Saviour for it 3 4 5 6 7. See how our Saviour reprehends this Pharisaicall pride and false devotion in these 3 4 5 6 7th verses following by the first parable of a shepheard having lost one sheep out of an hundred c. Where first we must note the Rhemists expound that Christ meanes himselfe to be the shepheard he speaks of the lost sheep to be a sinnefull soul who straying from the safe pastures of Gods Lawes and seeking food to her own fancie runnes headlong to hell unlesse our Saviour goe after her to bring her backe again having left in the mean time the ninetie nine in the desert that is seeming to goe with all his zeale away from them to reduce the lost sheep and leaving of them in the desert of their usuall assistance onely which he never takes away and which in comparison of that extraordinary help he gives towards converting of soules or finding out any lost sheep seems but a desert or barren help But having found the lost sheep having converted the soul again comes back to his flocke and brings them the increase of his assistance not onely in their fellow convert but even in them to behold his conversion Note our Saviour having found the sheep doth not drive but bring it home upon his shoulders Alas he will not tyre him O tender Goâ— that he is unto us This may minde us that all mankind was once this lost sheep brought home upon Christs shoulders when he carried his Crosse upon them and was crucified besides leaving the nine quires of Angels representing the ninetie nine just in the desert of admiration to see their God so lost in their conceipts to finde out us that were indeed truely lost and strayed into the very jawes of hell and damnation and having brought us home desires all his Angells to joy and congratulate with him Note that as if his joy consisted in our salvation O high expression of his love to mankinde And when he sayes that in heaven there shall be more joy at the conversion of this sinner the salvation of a man doing penance then at the perseverance of ninetie nine just he insinuates the angels have a new actuall content in the penance and saintity of man which being new seems greater then what they had before for all good men one reason is because in every man that is by penance saved they find their own losses repaired and the places of the fallen angels filled But the main reason is because they see the will of God in this fulfilled and they are in perfect conformity to his sacred will 8 9 10. By the second parable the Rhemists say is meant holy Church lighting up her candle of new Missionaries and Preachers to find out the lost soul that heresie hath perverted and having regained found the soul again invites her Priests to a congratulation with her But S. Gregory hom 34. thus explicates both the parables saying Christ is as well meant by the woman as by the Pastour For as he was God he was the wisdome of God and because upon money there is printed an image the woman saith he lost her groat when man who was created to the image of God by sinne left to be like his Creatour but the woman lighted her lanthorn because the wisedome of God appeared in humane nature for a lanthorn signifies a candle lighted in it and the light signifies the divinity in mans nature The lanthorn being lighted the woman swept her house for straight as the divinity shined through flesh mans conscience was then strooken and the house is swept when by reflexion the guilt of any mans conscience is troubled in regard an evill mind if it be not before by fear altered is never purged from accustomary vices The house then being swept the groat is found since whilest mans conscience is troubled the image of God is repaired in him And who are the friends and neighbors but those celestiall powers above mentioned that are so much nearer the supream wisdome by how much more they approximate unto it through the grace of their perpetuall vision of it The woman therefore had ten groats because there are nine orders of Angels and that the number of the elect might be filled the tenth man was created who was not quite lost from his Creatour by his sin because the eternall wisdome shining through humane flesh found him out by the light in the socket of his lanthorn Thus he What more patheticall what more rare The Application 1 AS it is evident the Scribes and Pharisees here mentioned wanted charitie whilest they grumbled at our Saviours conversation with Publicans and sinners so is it manifest that it was an act of highest charity in our Saviour to seek the conversion of those sinners by his conversation with them and consequently while our Lord goes before us with the flame of charity we are taught to light all our works this day at that heavenly fire 2. In the second place these following Parables of the lost sheep and of the lost groat tell us we are to bring up in the rere of charity as we march along the desert of this world the zeal of souls for though this be a vertue principally proper to Pastors missionary Priests yet in regard there is no state of life in this world so desolate wherein men
it saith the expectation of the creature expecteth rather then the creature expecteth Again by creature in this place is understood not onely all mankind but even all other creatures below man for in man as in the abstract of all their perfections they are as it were made happy when he is rewarded by having God revealed to him face to face and by his injoying him for all eternity as who should say All corruptible nature hath then the full of their expectation when corrupted man is invested with incorruptible glory And then they are truly the sons of God when they are in glory an honour which the glorious Angels have not because their nature was never assumed by the nature divine and so though they are creatures of glory in nature more perfect then we yet are they not children of God so properly as men are 20. This verse shews that angels are not understood by the word creature since as they are in fruition and not in expectation so they cannot be liable to the vanity which here men and all creatures under them are subject unto in them who are God knows too too vain By vanity therefore understand here mutability labour corruption of all those creatures that God hath made subject unto man and therefore the text adds not willingly of their own accord for the time of his being in this world but in hope to be freed from that subjection when man is made immutable and stands no more in need of this vanity or mutability in other creatures Or we may understand this vanity to be that which is in man himself whereunto he is made subject not willingly but by being guilty of the sinnes of his first Father punished with his own mortality or corruption in all his progeny who yet have hope in Christ to be made free from it and to become immortall 21. In this verse is understood that not onely man but in him all other creatures under him that is the creature it self shall not by the gift of nature or grace but by that of glory be freed from all mutability and subjection and rendered sharing in glory with the children of God that is with men who become his children by their eternall glory 22. This verse rather shews the pain that other creatures are in under man then that which he is in himself as who should say they did cry out in continuall labour till in mans glory they were delivered 23. By this verse S. Paul means that not onely himself and the other Apostles who are the first fruits of all Christians but even all Christians themselves groan within themselves expecting as well the perfected adoption of glory in them as that of imperfect adoption which they have already of Baptismall Grace because this notwithstanding they may nay often do perish but the other coming then they have the full of their expectations and not till then For the desire of man is never satisfied untill the glory of God appear in him The Application 1. IT may seem a strange piece of divinity in S. Paul or a mistake of his sense in me to dissuade men from sin by the Rhetorick or voice of inanimate creatures as if either they could speak at all or yet speak more pathetically then holy men and blessed Angels for we see how often those do speak in vain to sinners to amend their lives But who so shall have read the Expositours above upon this present Text will see they do incline to this divinity that our sinnes are so weighty as they make the whole world groan beneath the burden of them ready to split indeed and unable to keep the course of Nature being so often interrupted in that course by our unnaturall proceedings every sinne being more or lesse an act against the law of Nature it self as well as against the law of God because all Naturall operations of the creatures are glorious to the Creatour whereas every sinne is inglorious and thence offensive to the Divine Majesty 2. Hence it is S. Paul begins this Epistle first to those whose charity and love to God gives them a sense of sin and to those who are willing to amend their lives by taking patiently the present punishments of sin such as are indeed but the naturall effects thereof neither as sicknesse sorrow persecution death it self Not condigne to the glory that shall be revealed in those who bear with patience the present Passions of Time so S. Paul stiles those effects of finne and animates the just to bear them patiently in hope of Heaven a reward so great as will render all those heavy burdens light 3. But the Apostle speaks in other language here to sinners such as wanting charity have no sense of God or of future happinesse these he makes the dumbe world speak unto in the 20. verse especially of this epistle bewailing the unwilling subjection the whole creature is in to sinfull mans vanity and looking on her hope to be freed from this generall subjection by the particular salvation of some few saints of men though not untill their corrupted bodies be made as incorruptible by glory at the latter day as their souls are already by that glory blessed Yes beloved this is the genuine sense of holy Text to day it tells us all the Fabrick of the world is like to split it tells us how dumbe creatures cry out shame of man to force them so against their nature to concurre to sinne it shews the bestiality of sinne when beasts themselves that never do commit it are ashamed of beastly man are sick and weary of him are tyred in beeing forc'd to serve him in his sinfull wayes and beg their own salvation in the just at least in which sense holy David said Thou O Lord wilt save both men and beasts to confound the sinner who pursues his own damnation even to the Torment of the creatures that are not capable of sinne and yet detest it out of an innate desire of honouring Almighty God in all their operations and so detest it too as they are ready to rebell against the man of sinne in so much that holy Church in her charity makes her petition proper to the sense above as if she were afraid least mans unnaturall wayes of sinne should force nature out of that order God hath set it in of serving man and pluck a warre of all the other creatures in the world on all man kind to the disturbance of the Church in her devotion and piety which at least she begs may be quiet and unperturb'd Say but the prayer above and see how patt it is to this purpose The Gospel Luke 5. v. 1. c. 1 And it came to passe when the multitudes pressed upon him to hear the word of God and himself stood beside the lake of Genesareth 2 And he saw two ships standing by the lake and the fishers were gone down and washed their nets 3 And he going up into one ship that was
sanctity that any Christian can hope to arrive unto so sweetly doth holy Church adapt her Prayer unto the doctrine of her preachers that so the layity may in little carry away what the preachers deliver to them at large The Epistle 1 Pet. 3.8 8 Be ye all unanimous in Prayer having compassion lovers of the fraternity merciful modest humble 9 Not rendring evil for evil nor curse for curse but contrariwise blessing for unto this are you called that you may by inheritance possesse a Benediction 10 For he that will love life and see good dayes let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips that they speak not guile 11 Let him decline from evil and do good let him enquire peace and follow it 12 Because the eyes of the Lord are upon the just and his eares are open unto their prayers but the countenance of the Lord upon them that do evill things 13 And who is he that can hurt you if you be emulatours of good 14 But and if you suffer for justice Blessed are ye And the fear of them fear ye not and be not troubled 15 But sanctifie our Lord Christ in your hearts The Explication 8. St. Peter here recapitulates some of the chief vertues which make a perfect Christian No marvel he begins with unanimity be it in prayer or otherwise in all common Actions because this vertue is radicated in the B. Trinity the ground of all Christianity for there the three distinct Persons are not onely all of one mind but of one essence too in imitation whereof Christians are taught to be all of one mind all ayming still in every action at the honour and glory of one onely God as the Angels do The Apostle puts compassion next to shew that each Christian should be as sensible of his neighbours sufferings as his own soul is sensible of the pain in any member of his own body This vertue flowes indeed from the former unanimity for where there is but one mind or soul as it were there must be one and the same sense or compassion And this vertue of compassion extends as well towards our being sensible of each good in our neighbour and zealous to imitate it as of any evil we see in him out of a zeal to remedy or cure the same So excellent is the unity of Christianity Hence also flowes the next vertue lovers of the fraternity to shew that the grace of our Religion teacheth us to imitate the perfection of nature so to love one another being Brothers in grace as we do that are Brothers in nature When we are bid Be merciful it is as if we were told our compassion must be even from the Bowels of our hearts Modesty and humility are well joyntly recommended together because they are indeed inseparable companions as it were and so in this exteriour vertue modesty rendring the whole person exteriourly gratefull and in her inseparable companion humility S. Peter closeth up his enumeration of vertues ending with humility because that is indeed both the basis and summity of all others for as it must be the first as captivating mans proud reason unto Faith so if it go not hand in hand up to the top of perfection with other vertues even with charity the Queen of them all that great Queen cannot stand fast in her throne but upon the feet of humility 9. S. Peter here forbids not the flowing of Justice or execution of just revenge when it is legal but onely private retaliation of evil for evil and exhorts that each private person blesse and not curse those which do him mischief because as the end of all our temporal evils is eternal Blisse so we must in hope of that for our selves Blesse those that do us evil O rare perfection of Christianity 10. By these three next verses taken out of Davids mouth S. Peter proveth that to repay evil for evil is our natures propension but bids us forbear as we will hope to have our own evil deeds towards God forgiven and the little good we do rewarded with eternal life called here seeing good dayes for those are chiefly good which shine with glory over our heads though the dayes of grace here are not deprived of that Epitheton too We are therefore bid refrain our tongues because when they be loose and unbridled that alone begets bad dayes unto us every one judging him to have a bad heart that hath a bad or an unbridled tongue and how can the lips of an ill tongue speak other then guilt when they betray the guiltinesse of their own heart 11. The declining evil and doing good is an abstract of all Christian duty and a perfect rule of Christian perfection 'T is reason to bid us seek peace and follow it as being the special gift of our Saviour which he brought with him from heaven at his birth and then the Angels bestowed it amongst us the holy Ghost did the like at his coming too and Christ at his going left it as his Farewel as hath been said before yet is not here unseasonably repeated 12. By the eye of our Lord understand the piercing knowledge of Almighty God whereby he sees into the secrets of all hearts and seeing them lovers of Justice heares all the prayers they make unto him and grants them all they ask By his Countenance understand here that displeasure he shews at the latter day unto the wicked when he pronounceth the sentence of damnation against them for how ever he doth not damne every man in his actual sin but differrs his justice till the latter day yet he looks on their iniquity that do sin with the same displeasing countenance as at the day of Judgement when it will be a greater torment to behold the displeasure of that countenance then to suffer hell fire O that we could in all Temptations to sin reflect on this Truth so should we avoid the fact that will merit this effect 13. A happy shield against evil to emulate vertue and goodnesse Emulation here imports a vehement zeal and fervour of soul towards vertue not a faint velleity or wish of it but a strong will and action too and so makes a strong shield not onely against all vice but even against all mischief for S. Austin sayes well no body is hurt but by himself by his own sin therefore if all men be emulatours of vertue they are sheltred from all evil or hurt from others And this one of the Churches prayers in Lent assures us of that no adversity shall hurt us if no iniquity dominear over us 14. Doubtlesse those are Blessed that suffer for justice since Jesus Christ who is verity it self hath numbered those among the Blessed nay among those who actually are possessed of heaven as if a patient suffering an unjust persecution here were a heaven to the sufferer even whilest he is in durance and as if God were not content to reward that kind of suffering with future Blisse but with
the devil therefore holy Church as strucken with an admiration at the wonder of it to see souls saved upon so huge an odds as three such enemies to one poor man or three millions to one rather considering every one of these three principall enemies have millions of instruments to damn a soul by and not knowing what else to attribute this unto then to the admirable Providence of Almighty God who hath so contrived that those whom he hath chosen to be his amongst the multitudes of men shall make their very dangers their security their very sinfull flesh the instrument of their saintity and salvation by the sole helping hand of charity Therefore I say it is the Churches prayer gives this prodigious work to the sole Providence of Almighty God and begs that by this never-failing Providence all lets to our salvation may be taken away and all helps possible afforded thereunto The Gospel Matt. 7. v. 15. c. 15 Take ye great heed of false prophets which come to you in the clothing of sheep but inwardly are ravening wolves 16 By their fruits you shall know them Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles 17 Even so every good tree yieldeth good fruits and the evil tree yieldeth evil fruits 18. A good tree cannot yield evil fruits neither an evil tree yield good fruits 19 Every tree that yieldeth not good fruit shall be cut down and shall be cast into fire 20 Therefore by their fruits you shall know them 21 Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome of heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven he shall enter into the Kingdome of heaven The Explication 15. BY false prophets are here understood any that undertake to teach or preach false doctrine By their coming unto us is understood they are not sent lawfully but pretend mission By the clothing of sheep is meant their false pretence of sanctity liberty of conscience expounding Scripture and the like whereas they inwardly are wolves that devour souls under pretext of saving them 16. Their fruits are commonly licentiousnesse of life obstinate heresie schisme from the true Church These the thorns of their pretended vines the thistles of their pretended fig-trees 17. That is to say a true prophet or teacher teacheth good doctrine and leads a good life a false teacheth bad lessons and liveth lewdly too 18. This is parabolically spoken in order to the will of man and so holds not ever but for the most part unlesse taken in the compounded sense that is a good will whilest it remains good cannot produce evil fruit though it may cease to be good and then produce evil 19. What is here said in the future tense is in the third chapter of S. Matthew spoken by the Greek Text in the Present tense as who should say every tree that yields not good fruit is presently cut down and cast into the fire as if it had cut it selfe downe and cast it selfe into the guilt of hell fire by mortall sinne And it is onely Gods infinite mercy that whilest we yield bad fruit whilest we sinne mortally we are not presently damned for so we deserve to be And in the same third chapter the hatchet is said to be placed at the root of the tree to cut it instantly down meaning Christ is come whose Law is ready to passe upon us whose sentence is ready to be pronounced upon every mortall sinne for then we are spiritually dead and after death judgement is instantly ready nay our own guilty consciences do even immediately pronounce our sentence of damnation unlesse God give us grace to repent and amend by producing good fruits again 20. If they live well and do good workes you may know they are true teachers if not they are false ones 21. See the modesty of our Saviour Christ who rather names his Fathers will then his own although they are alwayes both one and the same God and both equally produce the same effect of salvation if equally observed and obeyed But to the first part of this verse 't is not every one that calls upon God or undertakes to preach his word that is saved no he must bring forth the good fruit above required and what is that good fruit the will of God he must square himself and his actions thereunto and then he shall be saved by crying onely or knocking at heaven gates nay wee need not cry nor knock at all if we bring a key to open the doore if we have cast our own inordinate wills into the form of the will of God and so made unto our selves a key to open heaven gates withall to enter whensoever we die The Application 1. AS in the Epistle above Saint Paul bid the Laymen beware of their greatest internall enemies or evils their own flesh so in this Gospell Saint Matthew bids the same Lay-people take great heed of their most dangerous externall enemies the false Prophets meaning false Teachers and Preachers of Gods holy Word We are therefore as in the Illustration was observed by this dayes doctrine armed against all enemies whatsoever internall or externall by the prudence of holy Church collecting at once all the motives that may be to increase our love and charity to Almighty God in shewing us how his infinite Providence hath secured our way to Heaven by pointing out every danger that we can encounter in the way 2. And as the Lay-man hath no better guides to heaven then those that preach and teach the Word of God unto him that catechise and instruct him in the Principles of Christian Doctrine that offer sacrifice to God for him and administer the Sacraments of God unto him because with these guides it is he trusts his very soul so in regard there are that doe usurp this office of Prophets of Teachers and Preachers to the very bane poyson perdition and damnation of souls it was hugely necessary the divine Providence should arme us against this worst of evils by giving us a rule to know these impudent usurpers by these false Prophets from the true ones which knowledge we shall have by looking on the fruits of one and the other them that bring good fruit we are to follow them that bring forth bad to flie 3. Now because holy Church hath not made the Lay-man absolutely Judge in this particular therefore while her Doctours preaching on this Text give all the signes of true and false Prophets she contents her selfe the Lay-men have recourse to God Almighties Providence herein and that they onely follow those who make their works answerable to their Doctrine who doe as well as teach the will of God For as they onely are true lovers of him who keep his Commandements so such onely are to be the Lay-mens guides And to the end they may have such and may be freed from others They pray to day this may be an act of God Almighties speciall Providence over them
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
horrour of sin or the least affection thereunto which peace of conscience the Apostle magnifies so that he sayes it surpasseth all sense and cannot be sufficiently expressed Philip. 4.7 so great a fruit this is of charity and these are the chief internal fruits Now the external are Patience whereby we bear with the provocations of others that attempt to disturb the tranquillity of our minds by which we neither loose our own nor disquiet others Benignity goes further whilest it not onely bears patiently all external attempts against our internal quiet but even endeavours to sweeten their asperity who are harsh unto us to oblige others who would disoblige us as well as to requite the courtesies we receive from them this consists chiefly in a sweetnesse of language in an evennesse of actions towards all men and is such as very good men may want unlesse they have the special gift thereof and this is the main vertue by which we gain from others the reputation of being Saints Goodnesse rests not satisfied in doing well for all men and in all we do but in declining offence to any either God or men this consists chiefly in ayming to profit our selves or others and is therefore esteemed the fountain of utility Longanimity hath a great share of patience as if it were a continuation thereof yet hath this speciall difference from it thâ—t this reports rather to time then persons and useth the exercise of patience properly upon all diversity or difference of time past present and future for that every minute of our lives ought by this virtue to be a patient expecting the good hour of Gods holy will to be done in us whilest we live by our sanctification when we dye by our salvation 23. Mildnesse is here understood to be diametrically opposite to anger or revenge of injuries and differs by that notion from patience as also by rendring a man tractable and flexible to all that is desired and good to be done Faith is of two considerations first as it is opposite to heresie and so assenteth to whatsoever is proposed by God or holy Church to be believed though never so much above nature and this faith is not so properly called a fruit of charity or of the holy Ghost as it is indeed the root or first principle of religion Secondly as it imports fidelity or veracity in point of promise and as it is opposite to fraud or lying and thus it is properly a fruit of the holy Ghost or of charity or as it is said here by the Apostle of the Spirit and of this Faith S. Paul sayes Charity believes all things 1 Cor. 13. so it consists in a kind of genuine simplicity by considing in the veracity of all men and believing rather then distrusting what they say Modesty imports an equal temper in all words and actions and renders a man well composed for the exteriour of him grateful and acceptable to all men being an effect of his inward rectitude or composition Continency is as it were a militant chastity and consisteth in the act of resistance to temptation so it is rather an imitation or inchoation of chastity then chastity it self which may be perfect when and where there is no opposition or temptations as a man is said to live chaste so long as he sins not carnally but continent whilest he actuaâ—ly resists temptation to carnality though this vertue is a kind of transcendent perfection over all mens actions and thus it is as well a temperance from excesse of meats as from all other vices Hence married people may be said to be continent though not chaste when they forbear all carnal pleasure but that which is the moderate use of the marriage bed Chastity consists in an absolute forbearing all carnal pleasure whatsoever as well that of marriage as not of marriage and is highly commendable as labouring to bring the body to the simplicity or purity of a spirit by declining all corporeal commixtion or impurity And against these fruits or the producers of them there is no law that is they are not forbidden any way nor punishable by any law at all but may freely be practised Which doctrine of the Catholick Church is against that of Sectaries forbidding vowes of chastity as if they were vowes against the law of nature 24. This last verse ends the forementioned war between the flesh and the spirit telling us that those who are truly Christs have by the grace of the Spirit by the help of the holy Ghost not onely overcome the flesh but crucified it too allayed even all the desires and concupiscences thereof by works of penance and mortification which is called a spiritual crucifixion because it imitates the death of our Saviour who dyed that we might live in spirit and never dye to him There are five noted wayes of this crucifying our concupiscences by feare of hell by conformity of our will to Gods holy will by guarding of our senses by prayer and by fasting watching and almes deeds or any other mortifications either of mind or body The Application 1. IT is no marvel if after so deep a root as our Faith took last Sunday we see to day the same Faith rise with a mighty stemm a stock of Hope topt with a gallant Head of charity and become a dainty Tree laden with several fruits of all sorts of vertues whatsoeuer for the many numbred here in this Epistle are an epitome of all the rest and indeed however Charity be the best and highest of all vertues yet she must have the staffe of Hope to rest upon and the root of Faith to suck the triple breast of the single Deity the milky mystery of the B. Trinity or else she is not ripe enough to gather and be served in as fruit sit for the heavenly Table 2. But that we may know when she is ripe indeed see here how she is set against her opposite the flesh which is a love to sense but not to soules to creatures but not to the Creatour so the Apostle playes at once the husbandman the painter and the Philosopher whilest he to day gives charity to us full â—ipe and with her best life colour made by the shadow of the flesh that sets her off as foyles do beauties and as two contraries set forth one another see them both in their several effects in the Explication of the Text above 3. But because fruits do wither where the grounds are dry and have not sapp to feed the Roots therefore S. Paul doth close up his Epistle to day with the Aqueduct of life giving waters to all Christian vertues our Saviour and his sacred Passion for when he sayes Those that are of Christ have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscence he must needs conclude that Christ first overcame this flesh by his Spirit and that it is by the application of his Passion we are inabled also to do the like and that without the application of this
you shall receive or reap corruption But the common sense is that the fruit of carnality is disease corruption death damnation that of spirit vertue life everlasting glory and salvation 9. The Apostle here exhorts to a perseverance in doing good the Priest constantly continuing to teach the Lay to learn to relieve his teacher and to work according as he is taught as if incessant reward were not otherwise to be hoped but for incessant labour So as we may understand this in two sorts we shall reap in due time in the next world if we do not cease our labours in this or we shall even in this world reap incessant reward in due time for our labours here if we labour constantly and slack not our zeales since it is the end that crownes the work either with grace in due time here or glory in due time in the next world 10. That is whilest we have time to sow the seeds of good works let us do good to all people Christians or Heathens not onely to those we catechize though principally to Christians as being domesticals and of one house with us fellow servants in the Church of Christ the true house of God The Application 1. THe last Sundayes service and this do seem to be almost the same onely that was a more general Application to all mankind this to the chosen sort of men who make up the mystical body of Christ his holy Church Wherefore S. Paul in this Epistle makes his addresse particularly to the Priests and Pastours of our soules from the first verse to the end of the fifth at the sixth he begins to tell the sheep their duty to the shepherd and so continues to the end of the eighth verse in the two last verses he concludes with an exhortation to them of perseverance in their Christian duties bidding them do good to all men whatsoever but especially to one another to the domesticals of Faith to those who have not onely Christ their Father but do professe his holy Spouse the Church to be their Mother 2. We see by the Illustration above that the Priests office to us is double the one to cleanse us by administring the holy Sacraments unto us the other to defend us by preaching praying and offering up their daily sacrifices for us Hence we must conclude our duty consists in preparing our selves worthily for receiving those Sacraments from the hands of the Priests lest we incurr the censures of unworthy receivers no lesse then our own damnation if it be the Sacrament of the holy Altar that we do receive and if any other of them there hangs a curse at least upon all who perform the work of God negligently as all unworthy receivers of any Sacraments do or the negligent hearers of any Sermons or of Masse which is the sacrifice as well of the people as of the Priest and these are peculiarly indeed the works of God as being instituted by his sacred Son nay more they are the works of his continued mercy towards us and so surpasse all other his works whatsoever because we are told his mercy is above all his works 3. Hence the Priest is put in mind further then in the Explication above with what a holy intention attention reverence and zeal of soules he ought to administer any Sacrament and also how with the like regards he ought to preach or offer up his sacrifices thereby to comply with the trust of Sayntity which both God and man have put into his hands lest he incurr the odious brand of becoming like the people so the Priest for how ever both are sinners to God yet the Priests are set apart as Saints to the eyes of men and they peculiarly were those he bade be holy as himself was holy who made them dispensers of the mysteries of God unto the people Lastly hence the Lay-men are minded with what humility reverence fear and trembling yet with what confidence comfort obedience with what Faith what hope what love with what adoration with what zeal to God Almighties honour and glory they ought to receive the holy Sacraments to hear the Word of God to assist at the sacrifice of Masse which is not onely a commemoration but even a renovation a repetition in a mysterious way of our Saviours death and passion so they are to look upon the Priest going to the Altar with the same devotion as if they did behold our Saviour going to be crucified Now that both may do this our holy Mother prayes to day as above for that special gift of God that bounty whereby it is performable that ardent charity which sets on fire the world of flesh and makes it flye out into flames of holy love unto his heavenly Majesty for by this love it is that the Church militant is govern'd and by the same love God is glorified for all eternity in his Church Triumphant The Gospel Luk. 7.11 11 And it came to passe afterwards he went into a City that is called Naim and there went with him his disciples and a very great multitude 12 And when he came nigh to the gate of the City behold a dead man was carried forth the onely son of his mother and she was a widow and a great multitude of the City with her 13 Whom when our Lord had seen being moved with mercy upon her he said to her Weep not 14 And he came near and touched the Coffin and they that carried it stood still and he said young man I say to thee arise 15 And he that was dead sate up and began to speak and he gave him to his mother 16 And fear took them all and they magnified God saying that a great Prophet is risen among us and that God hath visited his people The Explication 11. THis was a fair Citie in Galilee within two miles of mount Thabor and so had the name of Faire for Naim imports as much This made the sadder funerall and the more gladsome miracle being in so vast so famous a City into which so great a multitude such a train of people followed our Saviour 12. This seeming chance to man of two such multitudes meeting those within and those without the City at the funerall was designed by God to render more authenticall the miracle God thereby more glorified and Christ the more beloved though it is to be noted that the Jews and Romans too had their burials alwayes out of the Cities unlesse rarely for Kings who were buried in the Citie of Sion David building a place for that purpose Note this onely sonne was also her onely child hence the mothers sorrow was greater to lose in him all the whole hopes of her house being a widdow of note and so past hopes of more of that family 13. By saying to her weep not he shewed his compassion of her sorrow was such that he meant to take away the cause of her tears by restoring her son to life again and so doubtlesse she believed when he
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
2. O beloved it is wonderfull to think how deep a root S. Paul layes here of Christianitie for whereas he speaks in all the following verses of unitie of body of spirit of hope of our Lord of faith of Baptisme of God c. he means our unanimitie must not consist of our being all of one mind with one another for so are many that are not true believers but that we ought to be all of one mind with God who by his sacred Son and by the holy Ghost hath taught us what that one mind is of his divine Majesty which we should be of such a mind as makes us one thing with him how ever severall things in our selves that is to say one mysticall body of Christ animated by one spirit believing one and the same faith which his sacred Son delivered unto us not making our own faith sutable to our own fancie and calling that one spirit because many are of that fancy too no no beloved Christian unanimitie is rooted in the sacred Trinitie where though there be a multiplicitie of Persons yet is there a simplicitie of Nature an unitie of essence an identitie of Deitie not onely because the Three distinct Persons are al of one mind but because they are one and the same Thing or Beeing rather since in God there is no composition between the Thing and the Being thereof as is in creatures and so he is more properly called a simple Being then a simple Thing And therefore all our simplicitie unitie or indivisibilitie must have root in him and not in us so that the unitie of our spirit which makes us one mysticall body of Christ must be derived from the same divine spirit that made God and man one person onely though consisting of two natures 3. To conclude as the essence of the Deitie consisteth in the unitie of the blessed Trinitie so doth the essence of true Christianitie consist in the unanimitie of Christians yet with this difference that in this life their unitie is rather a communitie then an identitie and their union properly is a communion first with Christ their head next with his holy spouse the Church and lastly with the Saints as in our Creed we professe for by the participation of all their saintities it is that sinners are drawn out of the mire of their iniquities And as we read 1. Jo. 4. v. 10. Charitie is not in this as though you have loved God but because he hath loved you so we may say of faith it is not as we square or choose it but as Christ hath squared it since we are not his for our chosing him but because he hath chosen us Jo. 15. v. 16. Now because upon this Epistle Preachers are to insist on the communion or union the unanimitie or unitie of true Christianitie as the proper difference thereof making them Saints onely and saved souls who are true believers and true lovers as above Therefore holy Church to day prayes to be preserved from that which is the poyson bane and contagion of Christians namely division faction schisme heresie infidelitie c. stilâ—â—g these very properly a diabolicall contagion because the Devill is the authour of them all The Gospel Matt. 22.34 34 But the Pharisees hearing that he had put the Sadduces to silence came together 35 And one of them a Doctour of Law asked of him tempting 36 Master which is the great Commandement of the Law 37 Jesus said unto him thou shalt love the Lord thy God from thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole minde 38 This is the greatest Commandement 39 And the second is like to this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self 40 On these two Commandements depend the whole Law and Prophets 41 And the Pharisees being assembled Jesus asked them 42 Saying what is your opinion of Christ whose sonne is he They say Davids 43 He saith to them how then doth David in spirit call him Lord saying 44 The Lord said to my Lord sit on my right hand untill I put thine enemies thy fooot-stool to thy foot 45 If David therefore call him Lord how is he his sonne 46 And no man could answer him a word neither durst any man from that day ask him any more The Explication 34. THe Pharisees came with intention to undervalue him and find him as they thought ignorant in the Scriptures so to eclipse the glory he had in silencing the Sadduces ignorant men in the esteem of the Pharisees 35. It seems this Doctour came not with any reall intention to entrap our Saviour as the other did whereof mention is made by S. Mark c. 12. but rather blinded the other Pharisees by seeming to ask a question to their entrapping sense while in truth he did ask it to satisfie his own doubt in point of practicall virtue as the Sadduces had been satisfied by him in the speculative verity of the resurrection for here this Doctour did approve our Saviours answer and said to him thou hast answered well indeed 36. The reason they asked this question was in regard they much doubted whether the greatest commandment were not that of sacrifice Levit. c. 1. because God seems chiefly honoured thereby And here the Pharisees absurdly bid children refuse to help their parents under pretense of offering to God what should relieve their needy parents as if that cloak of Religion were better then this duty to nature 37. But Jesus made them see there is no sacrifice so precious in the sight of God as that of our hearts affections and so he puts in the first place of commands that precept of charity which bids us love God above all things with all our heart c. And the reason hereof is because there is no precept so extensive as this of love whence you see it is expressed by giving all our affections wholly to God This made S. Bernard bold to say we must love him beyond all measure when he sayes the mean of love to God is to love him without mean or measure 38. Well is this therefore called the first and great commandment because it is so per excellentiam by excellency as extending to a kind of infinity when it puts no mean to our love of God no end at all but requires it be for ever that we love him Hence it is that charity is the Queen of the soul and life of all virtues and is indeed above Religion above sacrifice because by charity which is the love of the soul to God sacrifices are commanded to be made as testimonies of her loyalty to God who doth command them 39. This love of our neighbour is called the second commandment in order to perfection not in rank of law for there were many laws made before this was declared By loving our neighbour as our self is understood that we must really truly and cordially love him though not so much as our selves So by the particle as is here understood similitude not
of the doctrine of Christ the Gospel we have delivered unto you 6. The particle as here imports as much as if he had said by these two means namely of our preaching and your thereby tightly understanding the true sense of Christs doctrine you are confirmed in Christ in your belief of his veracity and so he becomes confirmed in you by these infallible testimonies you have of him our preaching and your right believing 7. See here how absolutely right masters the Apostles were how absolutely true schollars or disciples the Corinthians were of Christ to whom nothing is wanting in any grace that can be requisite to their confirmation who are true children of Christ who have such masters and who are such believers as the Corinthians were So that what remained was onely to see all they had heard and believed of Christ to be verified by his revealing the certainty thereof at his second coming in the day of Judgment when this perfect and fertile grace shall bring forth in them the fruits of glory in the Kingdome of heaven 8. This verse alludes to the present grace of Christ which the Apostle sayes should confirm them now in their belief meaning the Church not every particular member thereof and render them both here till then and at the day of Judgement inculpable for their having thus believed being thus called by God and thus instructed by the Apostles The Application 1. WE heard last Sunday how this Apostle summed up to his Ephesian Converts those particular vertues that were proper for new converted soules now to day he speaks to the Corinthians much in the same stile they being newly by his means then made good Christians onely here the Apostle insists much upon the effects of that grace in them which wrought their conversion and those effects how excellent they are the Explication of the Text above hath told us 2. It remains therefore that all Catholick Christians while they read this Text which minds them of their like conversion amidst a thousand millions of men who want that happinesse set their charity on work immediately to produce the like effects in their soules by the operation of the grace they have received to be and to persevere in that saving Faith which works it self by charity out of grace into glory at that latter day when every one shall receive according to their works 3. As therefore the gift of Faith wrought upon our understandings and directed them to an assent to mysteries above the reach of reason so charity is to direct our wills to attempt things above nature such as are all good works done for a supernatural end Now because all such works are the effects of grace and not of nature and because grace is given to us by the operation of God his mercy towards us who mercifully operates that in us which we our selves may cooperate unto but cannot operate without his helping hand without the operation of his mercy upon us even towards our cooperation which is indeed his holy grace working in us Therefore holy Church to day fitly prayes as above The Gospel Mat. 9. v. 1. c. 1 And entering into a boat he passed over the water and came into his own cittie 2 And behold they brought unto him one sick of the palsie lying in bed and Jesus seeing their faith said to the sick of the palsie have a good heart son thy sins are forgiven thee 3 And behold certain of the Scribes said within themselves he blasphemeth 4 And Jesus seeing their thoughts said wherefore think you evil in your hearts 5 Whether is easier to say thy sins are forgiven thee or to say arise and walk 6 But that you may know that the Son of Man hath power in earth to forgive sins then said he to the sick of the palsie Arise take up thy bed and go into thy house 7 And he arose and went into his house 8 And the multitudes seeing it were afraid and glorified God that gave such power to men The Explication 1. MUch dispute there is about this Cittie which it was since the Text calls it his own but the most probable sense is that it was Capharnaam which he was most pleased to grace with his miracles and preaching for Bethleem he had honoured with his birth Nazareth with his youthly education Egypt with his slight thither Hierusalem with his passion and so it rests Capharnaam must be that cittie which he now calls his own by his habitation preaching and cuting all diseases frequently therein 2. They bring him a paralytick in his bed the reason was that men sick of this disease lose the use of their joynts can neither go stand nor sit Here we may learn not onely to labour our own but our neighbours wellfare for this paralytick was brought doubtlesse by those who having seen the works of Christ and his wonders were zealous to bring this sick man on their shoulders to the fountain of health S. Marke sayes c. 2. v. 3. there were foure did bring this man to Christ And by the following words in this verse is evinced what we have already said of these mens zeals foâ— they carried the man up to the top of a house not being able to bring him bed and all through the crowd So Christ seeing the faith of these men who brought him with this zeal said to the paralytick in recompense of his and their faiths who brought him for the Text runs in the plurall number Sonne be of good heart thy sinnes are forgiven thee By these words we see the faith of miracles is and must be mixed with a confident hope of obtaining the favour asked which we believe is in his power to grant that we do ask it of and this confident hope is that which chears up the heart which Christ bade this paralytick continue Great is seen to be the benignitie grace and favour shown by Christ to this poore diseased creature when he calls him childe and to make him capable of that denomination forgives him his sinnes to shew he was not onely a corporall but a spirituall Physician and had power over souls as well as over bodies Nor is it marvell he first heals the soul of sinne by remitting it before he cures the body of this paralytick since commonly sinne in the soul is the cause of diseases in the body so that this was even a due order to cure the disease by taking away the cause thereof besides since all Gods workes are perfect it is consonant to Christ his dignitie and bountie being God to doe the worke completely to cure the man both body and soul and this indeed is commonly found to be the practise of Christ in most of his cures since his aime in all his miracles was the conversion of souls besides he came purposely into the world to take away the sinnes thereof But a main reason why here he did remit sin was to shew himself to be God by exercising that power which
unto her self she beggs the operation of his mercy in her may be the demonstration of her love to him because without him she cannot please him however he seems mercifully not to be pleased without us cooperating with him to his ends which are our own felicities On the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon Matth. 22. v. 11. ANd the King went in that he might see those who were set and saw there a man not clothed in his wedding garment and saith to him friend how camest thou hither not having thy wedding apparell Vers Let my Prayer O Lord c. Resp Even as Incense c. The 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 Illustration WHo can enough admire the depth of the Holy Ghost that in this prayer nay even in one emphaticall word or two thereof hath summed up not onely the Epistle and Gospel of the day but the whole story in a manner of our humane generation For what else do we find in the Epistle but S. Paul advising the Ephesians to put on the new man and cast off the old what else in the Gospel but a very good reason given us for doing thus by the parable of him who was not onely shut out of the wedding room because he had not put on his nuptiall garment but also was cast into outward darknesse c. And what doth this mind us of lesse then of old Adams story cast out of paradise because God found him there without his wedding garment without his originall justice Now that the prayer above doth sweetly summe up this will not perhaps so easily appear untill we find some transcendentall word or other which unlocks all the mysterious meaning of the prayer What if the word exclude go far in doing this when we beseech our almighty and mercifull God that he wil vouchsafe propitiously to exclude al things which are adverse unto us Certainly when all adversity is excluded from us God hath given us a fair testimony that we are included in his favour and have no bar between us and our eternall happinesse O! had Adam been so happy to have said this prayer and to have had the graunt of his petition the serpent excluded out of Paradise which we see was a huge adversity let in unto him our danger had not been as now it is to be shut out of heaven gates for want of our wedding garments and cast into outward darknesse into the pit of hell unlesse we may by praying as above obtain to have all things excluded which are adverse unto us lest if any one of all adversities enter in upon us we prove as weak as frail as Adam did and let that one enemy cast us out of all our felicity temporall and eternall For while we let in but any one he fetters us immediately he hampers our affections and makes us silly fools to doat upon our own undoing Whence we pray that all adversity may be excluded and that by this means being set at liberty both in mind and body we may with free souls execute those things which appertain to Almighty God for free souls import such as are not fetterred with the shackles of adversity and sinne If any ask what those things are which appertain to God why nothing more then we are told in the Epistle and Gospel to put off the old man and put on the new such as is according to God created in justice and holinesse of truth that thereby we may be capable of the happy appertaining to so great a master so good a God and consequently such as hath excluded lying anger theft and together with all his other sinfull children the devil himself not giving him any the least place in the soul And when we have put off the old man therefore called old because he is sinfull as old Adam was then we may hope to have put on the new or to speak more properly to the letter of the prayer though this be a good sense thereof then God will put us on the new For 't is indeed he that must create us he that must renew us in the spirit of the mind he that must make us just and give us the holinesse of truth ours is the negative his the positive part of sanctity we must first by his holy grace decline evil and then he will make us by virtue of the same grace do good we must not lie not be angry not steal in a word not sinne as this Epistle tells us for these things appertain to the devil and then we may hope to be the new created Saints whom the Gospel admits with wedding garments in to the wedding feast But in regard we find difficulty in our declining evil or in our not sinning therefore the prayer petitions that God will vouchsafe propitiously to exclude all adversities out of doors and by all adversity we mean all sinne for if he leave it to us we shall certainly let sin in and by so doing cause Almighty God to shut us out of heaven gates and cast us into outward darknesse for want of our wedding garment the livery of the new man who according to God is created in justice and holinesse of truth who is not onely called but elected too selected for eternall happinesse by God having excluded all adversity from him and made him freely execute those things which appertain to his Divine Majesty to be holy here and glorious in the life to come The Epistle Ephes 4. v. 24. c. 23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind 24 And put on the new man which according to God is created in justice and holinesse of truth 25 For the which cause laying away lying speak ye the truth every one with his neighbour because we are members one of another 26 Be angry and sinne not Let not the sunne go down upon your anger 27 Give not place to the devil 28 He that stole let him now not steal but rather let him labour in working with his hands that which is good that he may have whence to give unto him that suffereth necessity The Explication 23. HE had in the verse before bid them lay aside according to their old conversation the old man c. And now he bids them be renewed in the spirit of their mind not to be as formerly corrupted according to their own desires of errours but to have their souls fixed upon truth and justice such as from bastards of the devil made them true children of God and from wicked to be just for as thus they were changed from old to new by holy baptisme so now he exhorts them to renew in themselves the same spirit of their minds which they then were endued withall and which by the corruption of humane conversation had decayed in part
honest ends not for lucre or unjust sordid gain the temptation whereof will cease if we make it the end of our labour to do works of charity to others such as is relieving them in their necessity And if to this end even Church-men labour they will not want the example of it given them by the Apostles who did practise the same as well as preach it The Application 1. St. Paul not knowing what better counsel to give his Ephesian Converts when he found some of them relapsing towards the old man then to bid them be renewed in the spirit of their minds and to put on the new man which according to God was created in Justice and Holinesse seemes in this to have left it as a rule of Christian perfection that the Ephesians should endeavour to be continually the Saints which first they were when God by holy baptisme snatcht them out of the bondage of the devil and made them free-born Citizens of the heavenly Hierusalem clad in the richest robes of Saintitie the purest Innocency 2. And surely holy Church can have no other aym by reading us this lesson to day then to mind our charity of walking in that saving path of Innocency by renewing her baptismal vow her holy covenant with Almighty God of loving him above all things and her neighbour as her self of renouncing the world the flesh and the devil with all their lying passion malice and injustice forbidden to all Christians in the holy Text above 3. Now because this is easier said by Preachers then done by the people and because it is impossible for men of themselves to do the least good at all the Royal Prophet saying there is not one that doth it therefore holy Church finding her children by S. Paul exhorted to no lesse perfection then the highest of Saintity and remembring that as when Adam was in Paradise God to ease his way to Saintity had shut out all Adversity both of mind and body from thence all disturbance and grief of soul all rebellion of sense against reason all disasters of the body in a word all mortality it self so the same God having pleased to bring us in to a Paradise of grace our prudent Mother hopes his divine goodnesse will also shut out all adversity from thence that we may not by disturbance either in mind or body be hindered from executing his commands better in this paradise of grace then Adam did in the paradise of Earth yet withall our holy Mother knowing the difficulty of this work to procure us this tranquillity useth all her best arts and for this end Prayes to God that it may be if not ours at least his own handy-work and if not feisible by his ordinary Power that yet it may be done by his Omnipotency or by that which yet to us is greater by his mercy and lest that mercy be mistaken she conjures him by the highâ—st of his mercies by his bitter death and passion by that mercy which doth not onely satisfie the rigour of his Justice but renders him Propitious also to us Say but the Prayer above and see if it be not home to all this purpose The Gospel Matt. 22. v. 1. 1 And Jesus answering spake again in parables to them saying 2 The Kingdome of heaven is likened to a man being a King which made a marriage to his son 3 And he sent his servants to call them that were invited to the marriage and they would not come 4 And again he sent other servants saying tell them that were invited behold I have prepared my dinner my beeves and fatlings are killed and all things are ready come you to the marriage 5 But they neglected and went their wayes one to his farme and another to his merchandize 6 And the rest laid hands upon his servants and spitefully entreating them murdred them 7 And when the King did hear of it he was wroth and sending his hosts destroyed those murtherers and burnt their City 8 Then he said to his servants the marriage indeed is ready but they that were invited were not worthy 9 Go ye therefore into the high wayes and whomsoever you shall find call to the marriage 10 And his servants going forth into the wayes gathered together all that they found bad and good and the marriage was filled with guests 11 And the King went in to see the guests and saw there a man not attired in a wedding garment 12 And he said to him Friend how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment but he was dumb 13 Then the King said to the wayters binde his hands and feet and cast him into the utter darknesse there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth 14 For many are called but few elected The Explication 1. BY this way of parables Christ did often instruct and illuminate the Jewes who were very intentive to any parabolical sense and much pleased therewith 2. By the Kingdome of heaven is here understood the Church militant which is truly a Kingdome purchased by the blood of Christ and the time when this marriage was made was when Christ became man who being the second person of the blessed Trinity was espoused to his holy Church So the King here mentioned is God the Father sending down his Son to be married to his said Spouse the holy Church 3. The servants meant in this verse were the Patriarks and Prophets of the old Law who could not prevail with the Jews to come unto the wedding feast that God had by these his servants invited them unto 4. The servants in this verse were the Apostles their disciples and all missionary Priests of the new Law of Christ These were bid tell the people invited and with great reason the wedding feast was ready for so the word dinner here imports By the beeves and fatlings are understood the Sacrifices Sacraments Sermons Martyrdomes and all other spiritual food prepared for souls in holy Church 5. By these are understood men preferring the world before God and so refusing to be reconciled for fear of loosing their estates by the penal lawes of man made against the followers of the Law of Christ The farm and merchandize are here set down in lieu of all other worldly occupations withdrawing soules from the service of God 6. These are such as did not onely refuse themselves to become good but proceeded farther in their malice by opposing others in their way of vertue in a word by persecuting the people of God the true Church of Christ Such were those who put to death the Apostles such they who now execute the Priests that succeed the Apostles in the ministery of Gods holy Word 7. This verse tells us that God perceiving the wickednesse of those who persecuted his Saints as the Jewes had done his sacred Son sent in his wrath Titus and Vespasian to destroy the Jewes to sack Jerusalem and therein to pull down the Temple of Solomon the miracle in a manner of the world So
of your selves as you please the more of this the better so you humbly acknowledge all your force and power to practise what I have preached unto you must come from God from Jesus Christ our Lord his sacred Son so that if what you do be done in him rather then in your selves desiring him to work in you by the virtue of his grace by the merits of his passion for therein truly doth consist the might of his power since thereby he hath wrested all mankind out of the hands of the devil to whom they were slaves before if thus I say diffiding in your selves and considing in him and in his assistance you take courage and do as I have advised you fear not but you shall maugre all opposition atchieve that perfection which it behoves Christians to aim at 11. By the armour of God is here understood his holy grace which is unto us a compleat armour indeed from head to foot not onely of Pistol or Musket but even of Cannon proof for so it is understood when it is said to be against all the deceits of the devil his least his greater and his greatest of all even those that like thunder-bolts of most horrid temptations play about our ears much louder then the voices of Canons do or can because against these be we never so often never so long battered or stormed by them the grace of God is proof enough not onely to bear off first all the play of the Devils artillery against us but afterwards to furnish us with powder and ball sufficient to batter down all our enemies strongest holds to force his trenches and chacing him from thence to render us absolutely masters of the field and conquerours over all our enemies that either the world the flesh the devil or all Hell it self can issue out against us for as Saint Bernard saith The devils temptations are not so powerfull over us as our prayer is over him his pride cannot lay us so low as our humility will prostrate him 12. This Verse is not so affrighting as it is friendly informing us whom we are to fight against not onely flesh and bloud for they are yet weaker then our own reason how ever for want of using the imperium or absolute command of our souls over our own bodies we are miserably betraid and made a prey to our own mutinous fleshly members but we have yet stronger enemies to encounter with and fit it is we should know them for which cause the Apostle here rangeth them into battail array calling them Princes Potentates c. By Princes are here understood those devils who were of that rank and order of Angels before they fell whom Saint Paul calleth Principalities by Potentates those whom he calls Powers which rank they yet reserve in Hell and so command the inferiour Orders of Devils to act their pleasures even as we see Rebels to their lawfull Prince content to obey the commands of him they chuse for their Master Rebell which in Hell is Lucifer the Archangel and under him some of all the nine Quires of Angels who fell into the first Rebellion with him And namely by the Rectours here specifide the Apostle seems to allude unto these Apostatical Fiends who were formerly called by him the Dominations for these had a kinde of dominion special to them in Heaven over the children of God and now such of them as are fallen have the same dominion over the children of the Devil for these be they who make up the world of this darkness not onely of sin but of all the effects thereof War Plague Famine And these Rectours are commonly conceived to be the aerial Divels who cause all storms c. in the air all temptations and troubles in mens souls and hence it is Saint Paul cals them the Spirituals of wickedness in the celestials that is to say the aerial devils towring like Hawks in the air over the prey of our souls By the Spirituals of wickedness is meant the wickednesse of these spirits who have no limit of their malice tormenting not onely our bodies but our souls which last is expressed by the Apostle saying they attach us in the celestials in those points which concern our souls being spirits created and ordained for heaven and to eternal glory there and are perpetually by these aerial devils seised on by their sharpest talons of temptation whensoever they make the least attempt of an aspiring or mount to heaven unlesse the impulse of grace be such as renders them more able to rise upon their spirituall wings then these aeriall devils are to keep them down which is ever when to sufficient never failing the true children of God they obtein the addition of effectuall grace seldome given gratis without our extraordinary cooperation towards obteining of it 13. Now that we see that we have no unarmed enemies to encounter the Apostle bids us again take up and stand to our armes the grace of God which alone sufficeth and is proof enough that we may resist in the evil day which imports in the hour of temptations that being the greatest of evils for by this evil it is that we are plunged into all the rest though our resisting temptation will not make the day so good wherein we do resist it but that there will come a period of that day which will be evill to us again namely the day of judgement wherein the devill will pretend some guilt of consent amidst our best resistances yet in vain by Gods grace for if we secure our selves from mortall sin in the evill day of temptation we shall not need to fear his malice in the day of publication when he will lay open all our faults against us in hope thereby to make it the day of our eternall damnation By the close of this verse we are not onely counselled to resist temptation but to keep the field after the battail wonne for thus much imports the counsell of the Apostle bidding us stand in all things perfect meaning there to fortifie and plant our selves in virtue where we were by vice attached 14. By this verse we are told truth must be the ground of all our warre and that we must be sure our cause of fight be just besides and the justice of it is our breast plate for those are the two buckles that must gird our loyns which is to say strengthen our cause and beeing so girt we need never fear the hottest fury of most fierce assaults but shall be better accoutered for our spiritual fight then souldiers are to the warrs who have their scarfes or belts about them of silk gold or silver to adorn them with in testimony of their fidelitie resolution and affection in and to their cause 15. By being shod is here intimated the difference between the Evangelicall and the Old Law for in the Old Law all servants as well as slaves went barefooted and to foretell the captivitie of the Egyptians who were by the
Assyrians led barefoot in shew of their slavery Isaias went three dayes barefooted Isa 20.3.4 which he needed not have done but for this propheticall end whereas the Apostle intimates here our slavery is past and our servitude also in regard we are of slaves to the devil made now children of God and so need go no longer barefooted But the truest meaning of this place is that by being shod we shew a promptitude both in hearing preaching and practising the Word of God as who should say this promptitude were the best preparation to bring in Christianitie to all parts of the world And the Gospel of Christ is rightly called a Gospel of peace because it brings tidings of humane redemption of fraternall dilection and of salvation to those that walk therein 16. In all things imports here above all things that we must take up the shield of true faith for that is it indeed which not onely shews us to be Christians but defends us against all enemies of Christ by breaking the darts and arrows of the devil which are shot against us and are born off by this buckler of faith are received confidently and shattered against it assuredly for no temptations enter the body or the soul that are received upon this buckler By the fierie darts of the most wicked one are understood the temptations of the flesh which the devil leads us into and such are those of burning lust but easily quenched by believing God's grace is sufficient to extinguish them in us as it was in S. Paul 2 Cor. 12. v. 9. 17. By the head-peice or helmet of salvation the Apostle means the hope of heaven given us by Christ his passion for as a helmet secures the head as the chief part of man so this hope of heaven settles all our thoughts rectifies our intentions and squares our actions to the right end that makes them saving and encourageth us for the hope we have of heaven to rush in upon any danger which is between vs and that blessed home as men whose heads are armed with a helmet do break into the thickest shower of their enemies darts or swords By the sword of the spirit or spirituall sword is understood the Word of God the Gospel the doctrin of Jesus Christ whether written or delivered by the oraculous mouths of his twelve Apostles and from thence brought down unto this very time we live in 2 Thessal 2.15 Isa 59.20 21. and which shall be handed over from us to all after ages by the teachers and preachers of the Holy Church With the edge of this sword Christ slew the devil tempting him in the desert as we read Matth. 4. when he said not in bread alone but in every word that falls from the mouth of God man is fed and kept spiritually alive And thus we see a Christian souldier compleatly armed by the Apostle from head to foot with spirituall armour and weapons not onely sufficient for defensive but even to secure him in an offensive warr against his greatest adversaries The Application 1. THe 2 first verses of this Epistle give us warning of the worst encounter charity hath had as yet in all her tedious march hear how they bid her fortifie arm and stand the enemy the devil But God be thank'd ther 's a friend at hand The mighty power of our Lord. The 3d verse tels us 't is not Major Generall the Flesh who rallies still a new how oft soever we beat him out of the field nor the Leivtenant Generall the World but Captain Generall himself the worst of all the Divells hell can arm against us The spirituall of wickedness in the celestialls bids the Battel now the same that never comes to field without his Rectours Princes Potentates and all the forces he can muster up The Explication above hath fitted us to the fight and taught us the use of our armes 2. Now Charity defend thy self and us put up thy Royal standard that of Heavenly Grace fixt to the Cross of Christ See how they charge thee on thy right wing first hark how their canons roar against thy Faith while it is Deity indeed they fight against with Infidelitie Atheistry Paganisme Turcisme Heresie Judaisme Sects and Schismes as many as there are fancies in mens fickle brains See at the same time how they charge thy left wing too Thy hope of everasting happinesse This they would fool thee out of by their onely facing thee with Liberty thy birth-right with honour pleasure profit treasure and command possessions better as they say then thy best of expectations ought to fright thee from But all the main charge is against thy Faith and this too given by the Captain-General the spiritual of wickedness in the celestials he that having lost himself would lose thee too he that 's asham'd thou should'st enjoy the happinesse he is deprived of because he could not love his Maker better then himself See then the Battail's at an end if charity can love God can crown her with the victory over him that lost the day for lack of love Be sure thy faith can never fail if thou be constant in thy love since all belief is rooted in charity so we are taught Ephes 3.18 Whilest we have Christ to dwell in our hearts by faith rooted and founded in charity the same is of the Deity and all the other mysteries of Faith we do believe and all of Hope So whilest our charity keeps her Body close her virtues round about her those we call the works of love her wings are safe the day the field 's her own maugre all the enemies assaults for say beloved though we should admit which yet we must not do that Invisibles are slender motives to make us relinquish all the present pleasures of the world yet of the two Invisibles those that tie us up to goodness here are safer certainly then those that let us loose to all iniquity So by force of reason charity hath woon the day while she believes hopes in and loves the unseen Deity by having seen the sayntity of his sacred Son and in that faith that hope that love defies the unseen enemy to Deity the Devil whose seen iniquities affright us from the ruine he invites us to 3. To conclude if holy Church on the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany upon the danger of the enemy man assaulting her by night but to sow poysonous seed upon her wholesome corn did Body then and draw her self into her Guards no marvell that to day upon a greater onset she Bodies too and puts her self into her Ranks and Files indeed into Battalia and now begins her prayer in the self same words as then though being yet to make a further march she variâ—s in the latter end of her petition And because she knows the divine protection will no longer continue to set her free from the worst of adversities those spiritual iniquities that would fain cut up Religion by the roots and fool us out of doing
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
so have their names written in the book of life are predestinate and cannot choose but be saved But this is farre from the genuine sense of the Apostle who had before so much inculcated perseverance in good works as in this Epistle we have heard his meaning therefore must be that those who by Baptisme are first adopted children of God and by a holy life preserve their favour in the sight of God are at last written in the book of glory as at first they were in the book of grace as who should say he did exhort them that were first innocents to be at last Saints and so deserve to be finally inrolled Commanders of the heavenly Militia after they had been once listed souldiers of the militant Church of Christ The Application 1. THe doctrine of sincerity last Sunday inculcated is this day prosecuted by S. Paul to the Philippians and lest they should misunderstand him he tells them plainly he requires as sincere a Christianity in them as they found to be in himself while he makes his own rule of life their pattern and example to follow him by and doth not fear to fright them from their onely nominall Christianity by declaring those to be enemies to the Crosse of Christ who do not really sincerely take up the same and carry it as well as they pretend to do it who have not their conversation in heaven while they presume to hope their bodies shall go thither though their souls be wallowing here in the mire of flesh and bloud Finally lest they should be deterr'd from following S. Pauls Rule out of a despair of arriving to his perfection in Christianity which in those dayes was and still should be Synonyma with saintity he exhorts them at least to follow the examples of the two virtuous Matrones here set before their eyes Euodia and Syntiche as also those of his sincere companion though not an Apostle and of the rest of his Coadjutors in the propagation of the faith of Christ 2. Yes yes beloved 't is a holy sincerity that now our charity must bring along with her to her journeys end and therefore no marvell 't is two dayes together inculcated by holy Church nor can there be a greater sincerity then that to day before our eyes that of the Primitive Church and consequently that is it we should endeavour now to have indeed and not to fain for as we glory to be Christian Catholicks so we should endeavour to be as sincerely such as they from whom we are descended 3. And for as much as holy Church knows rightly well there is no saintity on earth free from iniquity no sincerity that is not waited on by some hypocrisie or other therefore while she preacheth perfection she prudently prayes for absolution especially now that she draws to the close of her annuall piety now that she brings her charity towards her journeys end lest vanity runne away with part of her holy labours For that is the safest step to saintity which tramples on iniquity treads it under foot those stand firmest in the grace of God that are alwayes begging new favours by asking pardon for old offences and they shew sincerity of their love to God who desire to cancell all their obligations to the devil who are not content with pardon for their guilt of sinne unlesse they may be loosened from the bands thereof from their affections unto sinne And for as much as charity is taught to march out of the field of this life with such a sincerity with such a sincere desire of saintity Therefore holy Church brings her towards her journeyes end now praying for it as above The Gospel Mat. 9. v. 18. c. 18 As he was speaking this unto them behold a certain Governour approched and adored him saying Lord my daughter is even now dead but come lay thy hand upon her and she shall live 19 And Jesus rising up followed him and his disciples 20 And behold a woman which was troubled with an issue of bloud twelve years came behind him and touched the hemme of his garment 21 For she said within her self If I shall touch onely his garment I shall be safe 22 But Jesus turning and seeing her said have a good heart daughter thy faith hath made thee safe And the woman became whole from that hour 23 And when Jesus was come into the house of the Governour and saw minstrels and the multitude keeping a stirre he said 24 Depart for the wench is not dead but sleepeth And they laughed him to scorn 25 And when the multitude was put forth he entred in and held her hand and the maid arose 26 And this bruit went forth into all that countrey The Explication 18. THat is as he was giving a reason why his disciples did not fast so rigorously as those of John the Baptist did and as also the Pharisees were wont to do which were onely voluntary and not legall fasts Then came in this Governour who was a chief officer in the Synagogue called Jairus which signifies Illuminatour or teacher of the people By Adoration is here literally meant falling at Christs feet which yet he did not do before news was brought him by his servants that now his daughter was dead lo then he believes firmly and in testimony thereof prostrates himself and in the very manner of his language saying now my daughter is dead he blames his not believing and asking help sooner but to make amends for his not hoping Christ could cure his sick daughter he invites him to go home and revive her though she now were dead not that he doubted but his power at a distance would suffice but that he had heard Christ was accustomed to touch those whom he healed in Capharnaam and this was on the sea coast of Galilee not farre from the same town famous for Christ his miracles 19. That this is the genuine sense of the verse above is gathered the rather from Christ his going immediately to undertake the cure even after the same manner namely by a touch of his sacred hand for we do not hear any rebuke given to Jairus for want of Faith but Christ resting satisfied his belief was full resolved to give him full satisfaction to his Faith and hope by reviving as was desired his dead daughter taking his disciples as witnesses to this his gracious condescending and working this miracle Yet this notwithstanding the Centurions Faith was above this of Jairus who onely asked a word saying Mat. 8.8 speak the word onely and held himself not worthy the honour of Christ his entring his house 20 21. 22. Note this woman was a Gentile and it wants not mystery to have the twelve yeares of her diseases continuation upon her here made mention of in regard it alludes to the twelve years age of Jairus daughter whom Christ was going to raise from death to life and thereby gives us to understand Christ by his ordaining to do those two miracles at
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
doors 34 Amen I say to you that this generation shall not passe till all these things be done 35 Heaven and earth shall passe but my words shall not passe The Explication 15. BY this Abomination of desolation Christ meant a most abominable desolation and most probably he alluded to that which was to follow namely the Romans sacking of Jerusalem as a punishment upon the Jewes for having there crucified the Saviour of the world how horrid and dreadful an abomination that was Josephus his history best describeth But mystically we may well interpret this abomination to be the sacrilegious defiling of the Temple of Solomon both by the barbarous murders therein committed by the Jews and the profaning the Altars thereof by the wicked Priests much more is this abominable when Christian Priests profane their holy Altars and become wicked Isa 24.2 as the people so the Priest of holy Church And the like abomination it is to receive the body of Christ into a sinfull soul for then he is rather betrayed into the house of the devil then received into the Temple of the holy Ghost Not unaptly also this abomination may allude to Antichrist setting himself upon the Altars of the Churches to be adored as God In fine when any of these horrid iniquities are done then we may piously imagine the Judgement of God is not far of since were it not for his mercy sake these abominations deserved immediate damnation 16. By this verse is mystically meant that when good men see these enormities done commonly in the cities they should flye from such evil cohabitations lest the houses of the city fall upon their heads and run out up to the mountains thereby to shew they are desirous of getting up as near to heaven as may be when their houses become a hell unto them Though literally our Saviour alludes to the advice he after by revelation gave the Christians when Jerusalem was to be destroyed to flye from Jurie to the mountains beyond Judea for the Roman forces had possessed those hills about Judea whereas the Jewes hearing of the Romans approaching into their countrey fled all into Jerusalem God so ordaining it for their destruction who yet thought they should in that famous city be most safe 17. They were bid flye from the tops of houses if they happened to be there when the newes came of Titus with the Romans falling upon them to shew those powers were to come like a tyde or torrent upon the Jewes unavoidably and therefore since in those daies their houses were commonly built flat on the top and their use was to eat and walk there as freely as now men do in lower rooms they were advised to make no stay for getting any goods away but immediately to run and think themselves happy if they could save but their own persons insomuch that the sudden destruction of Jerusalem is by the Historian described like to Noes floud to the burning of Sodome with fire from heaven and to the drowning Pharaoh his forces in the red Sea 18. This verse followes the strain of the former by advising immediate flight without regard to any thing else 19. This expresseth their danger who by the reason of children either in their wombs or at their breasts could not make speed enough to save themselves in regard of their burdens retarding their flight Also it alludes to the severity of Gods wrath over the Jewish Nation who to punish their sins would not spare the innocent infants of that race but leave all a prey to the devouring sword of the Romans meeting them in their mothers bellies or nurses laps 20. This shewes the clogg of winter wayes and weather forbids especially to aged men a speedy flight such as was necessary to avoid this instantaneous destruction and the Jewish Law forbidding any man to walk above a mile indeed half a mile on the Sabbath shewes that slow flight was inconsistent with this speedy danger for though Christ did abrogate the rigour of the Sabbath Law yet be alludes here to the Jewes and Judaizing Christians that were hardly brought off from the superstitions of their old Traditions Again Christ here insinuates it is vain to flye on the Sabbath because Jerusalem and so all was taken on the Sabbath day 21. There is no doubt but the destruction of Jerusalem was a calamity unparallel'd for since Almighty God in revenge of his sacred Sons being butthered therein had designed this city to exemplary punishment he was resolved to make the rigour of it such as resembled rather Hell then any horrour lesse onely note that here it is meant the particular destruction of the Jewes is unparallel'd by any particular nations destruction not that the finall day of Judgement shall be lesse calamitous to all the world then this day was to the Jewes alone 22. This place literally alludes to the Jewes as the chosen people of God and so valued by him above all others that he seems to say if they be safe none else are in danger because them chiefly he desires to preserve yet seeing they will not be gained by him he then converts his love to the Gentiles and in this sense he goes on meaning unlesse the daies of the Jewes subversion by the Romans had been shortened no flesh no Jew in all the world should be saved but for the elect for some very few converted Jews before for some in this confusion of their overthrow and for others reserved for conversion in the latter daies to make one Church as also for respect to many Christians amongst them God ordained that Titus the Commander should put a limit to the fury of the sword and after a time should give quarter even to the Jews insomuch that as Josephus writes fourty thousand of them by the mercy of Titus were saved and but for this not one Jew in all the world either would or could have escaped the sword so inveterate was the hatred of the Romans to that persidious Nation Hence we see the power of even a little virtue in man how great a sway it bears with God that for never so little good he averts a huge deal of mischief 23. Many conceive Christ here passeth from his report to the destruction of Jerusalem and falls on the day of general Judgement but it is not so for by the word then he professeth to continue his former sense and this suites well for then the Jews knowing the time of the Messias to be at hand to save themselves and to flatter such as usurped the properties of the Messias they when persecuted by one party would flye to this other that adhered to such impostours as then boasted themselves to be the Messias so our Saviour to prevent danger to such as might be carried by this meanes to infidelity foretels them what arts would be used to insnare them And there were three eminent men of this wicked faction Eleazar the son of Simon Jehu the son of Leviah and Simon the
next because a cloud is a type of the hidden mystery of his Deity lastly because he shall have his judiciary Throne placed in a cloud wrought out into the form of a moving chariot so that a cloud shall be both his seat and his footstool whilest in the ayr he appears to all the world below on his Throne of Judgement He shall then come in great power to shew he could have done so too when he came a weakling and alone into the world at his Nativity In great Majesty by the attendance of all the quires of Angels and blessed Saints waiting upon him 31. This verse doth not keep the order of Judgment but tells the manner True it is this shall be but not after Christ hath appeared for it shall be done before that and many other of these signs so it is put in here lest the story should come short of truth not to observe the order of the passage This gathering of the elect from all corners of the world and from heaven it self even the highest and lowest saints there argues the care God hath of them and that no distance of place can hinder them from coming to him who sends his Angels to bring them for their reward it tells us also we need not proclaim our own good deeds God sees them be they done and kept never so secret to avoid vain-glory 32. What was literally said before is now anagogically prosecuted by the example of a fig-tree which never springs but when the heat is strong that so the fruit thereof may be securely ripened and not nipt with cold and because it is a tree bearing great store of fruit so the Sun of Justice appearing the earth yields up all her fruits all the Saints thereof and presents them to the Sun that must mature them for the table of his heavenly Father when the summer of the resurrection comes 33. This example he useth to shew that however Judgement be terrible to those that are in sin yet to the just and to God himself it is as welcome as the harvest which brings in the treasure of the year and the fruit of time into the barnes of Eternity And that we may be frighted from sin we are foretold many of the calamities we see in all ages are like some of these fore-running signes to the latter day so we may religiously fear our particular Judgement at least is at hand and when all the signes are fulfilled we may be as sure the general will follow as we are sure the ripening Sun is near when the fig-tree sends out her sap from her wary root or mystically thus when in the cold winter of Antichrists persecution we see the Saints the spiritual fig-trees of holy Church put forth with confidence their leaves and buds of sanctity we may rest assured those wise figge-trees are not deceived and then it is time for sinful fools to repent themselves lest if not then it be too late for ever so to do 34. This verse onely imports that before the end of this world these signs shall be seen and this Judgement shall be unavoydable to mankind for that is it he means by this generation 35. The heavens and earth shall passe that is to say shall be changed from the present state and condition wherein they now are and whereunto they were ordained but for a time so that their after state shall be of a farre other nature liable to none of these changes which are now frequent in them according to the present exigence and series of causes Others understand by the last words of this verse our Saviour speaks here comparatively as if it were more possible for the settled course of heaven and earth to fail all at one instant then for the least tittle of Christ his word to passe unverified and this sense is not improbable being that which S. Chrysostome avows The Application 1. LOok how the Christian year begins so must it end with fear and love These were the plying virtues to the will of God that we begun the Rules of this sodality withall on Advent Sunday see the same virtues ply into the perfect circle of the year to day they bringing us to the end of our annuall devotion which began it but with this difference fear led us then unto the duty of our love now love hath brought us to the duty of our fear then we remembred our Judge that we might love our Jesus now we have loved him we need but fear him in respect of others who do not truly love him because it love bring us to the Judgement-seat we may be sure to find a loving Judge such as will never damn us It is the oracular edict of his own veracity I love those that love me and again it was the first love-lesson we were taught when charity began to march upon her own leggs on the third Sunday after Pentecost 1 Joh. 4. v. 17. Perfect charity fears not judgement meaning sure for her own particular Yet must have still a fear thereof in regard of others and she may fear too in her own behalf but that need onely be a fear she doth not love enough 2. It was no doubt with this designe our Saviour ended the frightfull story of judgement with the comfortable parable of the springing fig-tree to shew our charity that finall day is dismall onely to the damned souls to those that know not what it is to love their Jesu-Judge We see the holy Fathers make that exposition of it And we know that every creature groans for grief at the delay of that relieving day Rom. 8. v. 22. when they shall all be eas'd of their obedience to the disobeying man they are made subject to and when they shall be set to a new series and frame again to be ever consistent in their severall degrees of perfection without vicissitudes of fading to re-flourish those alterations were their punishments for mens prevarication and for working corruption in his body who by sinne had corrupted his own soul Judgement is therefore the longing of the just to see that justice done at last which is differ'd so long And indeed all present chastisement is mercy in comparison of that finall punishment which is therefore eternall because the wicked are unalterable in their malice and so force a rigorous judgement from the bowels of a mercifull Judge 3. To conclude what other sense can holy Church have of this latter day when at the preaching on that frightfull Text she makes us such a comfortable prayer as bids us beg tho greater remedies of Gods piety then his continuall graces the gifts of his glory at the day of Judgement to candy the confections of his graces to embalm the bodies of his Saints and make them uncorrupt as are their souls And all this favour she confidently bids us ask in recompence onely of our willingnesse to ripen our selves in the Sunne of his holy grace that he may make us fruits of
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
suites unto the rest of this dayes service also because all these were figures of our Baptisme in Christ of our being fed with the Manna of his Blessed Body and with the drink of his precious Bloud and lest it should be with us as the Epistle ends by telling us it was with the Children of Israel in the greater part of whom God was not well pâ—eased because they requited those signall favours with their murmurings ingratitude and other hainous crimes therefore holy Church this Day with more than ordinary reason bids us all pray as guilty it seemes of like ingratitude that we who for our sinnes are justly punished for the glory of Gods Name may be mercifully delivered from the same that so having prayed away Sin the cause we may be quit of the effect our just punishment for Sin And this for the onely reason whereupon we can hope it meerly to glorifie the Name of God who if for his own glory he should not forgive us could have no title or motive from us to doe it and for that cause this Prayer doth presse him home for Mercy when it mindes him of his own Glory in the being mercifull as being indeed the end for which he made mankinde that by him he might be glorified and fill up the places of the collapsed Angels The Epistle 1 COR. 9. ver 24. c. and Chap. 10. ver 1. c. 24. KNow you not that they that run in a race all run indeed but one receiveth the price so run that you may obtain 25. And every one that striveth for maistery refraineth himself from all things and they certes that they may receive a corruptible crown but we an incorruptible 26. I therefore so run not as it were at an uncertain thing so I fight not as it were beating the aire 27. But I chastise my Body and bring it into servitude lest perhaps when I have preached to others my self become reprobate Chap. 10.1 For I will not have you ignorant Brethren that our Fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the Sea 2. And all in Moses were baptized in the cloud and in the Sea 3. And all did eat the same Spiritual food 4. Aad all drunk the same Spirituall drink and they drunk of the Spirituall Rock that followed them and the Rock was Christ 5. But in the more part of them God was not well pleased The Explication 24. THE Apostle had in the foregoing verses spoken of his disinterested evangelizing without the least mixture of sordid gaine for his so doing but meerly out of zeale to Soules and love to God and in this verse he similifies between an Evangelizer and one that runs a race having first stated his businesse that the Evangelizer must be a man voyd of all proper Interest or ends ayming onely at Gods honour and the salvation of Soules so to this purpose he tels us first litterally of Evangelizers that though all of them doe runne yet it seemes not alwaies all with one ayme or end not for one and the same prise some for true zeale and they win the race others for self interest and they though continually running yet loose the match because they runne by the bowe not by the string they would fayne carry with them the compasse of their own desires and yet think to get heaven too so they take perhaps more paines and yet to lesse indeed to no purpose Mystically the Apostle meanes the same of the lay-people who all pretend to runne for the prize of heaven but he that is to say such onely winne it who runne right on and make no Maeanderous circles of mixed ends which retard their speed And that he meanes not onely one person but all such as runne equally that is to their utmost all for one pure simple and impermixed end the following words avow when he saies so runne yee that yee may obtaine that yee may winne the race the prize the kingdome of heaven the Crown of Glory Here he speaks in the plurall number to shew that heaven is not reserved onely for the best of Christians but that every good Christian may by running reach it but then he must be alwaies running as continually racers are since the least interpaulation or intermission of running is to cast ones self behind and therefore by so running is here meant running with all speed possible since when we doe all we can unlesse God reward our uttermost endeavours with adding spirituall wings to our leaden heels we shall come short Hence it is S. Austine saies very well Not to goe forward in virtue is to goe backward So S. Bernard too Epist 254. therefore if to advance be to runne not to runne is to loose ground and in the same place he brings in a similitude of Jacobs ladder whereon there was no angel at all stood still but every one was in perpetuall motion either upwards or downwards The ascending Angels importing the blessed soules and the descending the damned whence it is that not to rise in virtue is to fall to vice shewing there is no finall medium between good and bad between heaven and hell 25. Here the Apostle alludes to his own refraining all sinister or propper interest in his Evangelizing least they might retard his speed in that race he was running for his crown of Glory as Racers refraine from all such meats as doe obstruct or shorten their wind and feed upon those things as dilate the lungs or lengthen wind which is of greatest use for Coursers and thus he doth to confound those sordid Soules who will abridge themselves here of many pleasures and delights meerely to gaine the temporall reward of popular applause and yet will not refraine the least of their sensualities to gaine the eternall reward of praise from God and Angels but if we shall gather one principle which will serve to all purposes in this kind let us here fix our eyes upon temperance as most conducing to healthy and vigorous soules as takeing away all lustfull humours and supplying us with chast spirits that render our soules sound agil active and victorious 26. See how prettily S. Paul compares sinister ends in Gods service to men at cuffs with the ayre or running at hazard whether they shall win or loose that is by mixing humane with divine ends by rayling at the world and the devill as if they were our onely enemies and yet pampering the body which is indeed mans greatest adversary in regard neither of the other two can hurt us if we be sure the body be subdued Because we are not tempted as angels by pure intellectual motives but by sensual or corporeall ones 27. And that this was the Apostles sence in the verse above see how he now speakes in clear termes to the same purpose saying I chastize my body and bring it into servitude as if that were indeed the maine enemy a man had and truely so it is for nothing saith Aristotle enters into
that the Princes Armies were the hostes in this verse mentioned who after they had sackt did burn the City of Jerusalem 8 This verse alludes to the turning a way Gods face from the Jews his chosen people and casting his eye upon the Gentiles which signifies the transmigration from the Jewish Synagogue to the Church of Christ from the old Law to the new And he sayes truly dinner was ready indeed because Christ was then crucified and yet after that his resurrection ascension and coming of the Holy Ghost the stiffe-necked Jewes would nor be made believe in him so then the Apostles were sent from the unworthy Jewes to the Gentiles 9. Into the high wayes into all the nooks and turnings of the whole world into all Nations with Commission to make no such distinction as formerly God made between Jew and Gentile but to preach and teach the Word of God to all in general and to every one in particular of what Nation soever to every creature of the whole world Mark 16. v. 15. 10. This verse alludes to the performance of this Commission when holy Church sayes in honour of the Apostles Rom. 10.18 The sound of their lips went into every Nation and even to the worlds end their words were heard inviting as they were commanded bad and good that is not denying as Reformists do but that true faith may consist with evill manners that bad men may be yet true Christians or which is all one that in the Church of Christ there are sinners as well as Saints who are not therefore secluded the Church because they are of evil life but are still exhorted to mend By the marriage being filled with guests understand here the Church of Christ was full of true believers of all Nations whatsoever 11. This verse points at the day of Judgement which is the last day of the nuptial feast of Jesus Christ when God coming to view his guests brought into the Church out of all Nations shall espy one wanting his wedding garment wanting his robe of innocence and sanctity of life wrought by charity in his soul and rendring his faith meritorious in the sight of God by the good works of his charity By this one is literally and eminently here meant the reprobated Jew who at the day of Judgment shall be more confounded then any other Nation whatsoever so here is not had regard to faith as distinguished from charity since the onely obstinate Jew is understood to have no faith at all how ever he come thither to receive his doom with others that are then to be judged but his reprobation shall be signal and remarkable when he shall be as it were the onely man picked out to be thrust into the pit of hell Though by one man mentioned here is also signified that at the day of Judgment there shall not one be permitted to enter into the Kingdome of heaven who hath not on him the wedding garment of sanctifying charity hence each one ought to have a great care lest he be the one singled out to eternal perdition since in that vaste multitude not one can hope to lie hid from the sight of the Judge 12. By being dumb is here understood not being able to alleadge any excuse why he should not be damned Yet even in this inexcusable delinquency the text by the word friend out of the King mouth expresseth it is purely our own faults we are not saved for God on his part is our friend and so calls us when we obstinately persist in professing enmity to his Divine Majesty 13. By the Waiters here we may not unfitly understand the divels who wait indeed to snatch away as many soules to hell as they can By the binding his hands and feet is understood the cessation of all future action and place is then onely left for passion for enduring endlesse torments The darknesse of hell is therefore called utter darknesse because there is neither light of reason nor of grace nor place left in the damned to be saved by any meanes Though S. Gregory calls it outward darknesse which is more after the Latine text because it is a darknesse added to the darknesse of the heart and soul wherein the damned creature lived which as contradistinguished to that of hell S. Gregory calls inward darknesse where no light of grace did shine within the soul 14. This is a fearful conclusion for whereas the parable speaks but of one rejected this verse intimates very few are saved that is though many are called into the lap of the Church yet but few are placed in the bosome of Christ and there rewarded with eternal glory namely those onely who by good works and godly life added to their faith have according to S. Peters counsel made certain their vocation and election too 2 Pet. 1.10 certain indeed to God but not so to their knowledge who at most can have but a certain hope thereof so long as they live The Application 1. THe Parable of this Gospel seems nothing else but a deeper inculcation to us of the doctrine delivered above in this dayes Epistle inviting us to an innocency of life in this Paradise of grace by inviting us to a saintity of a far better life in the Paradise of glory 2. For what are all these excuses pretended here against our going to heaven but that which the Epistle forbids a meer practise of lying both to God and man So the Prophet had reason to say Iniquity gave her self the lye by pretending excuses from her bounden duty which ought to be nothing else but the serving God and the saving of her soul thereby What is the laying hands on Gods servants and murdering those that invite us to heaven but the Anger and giving place to the devil both forbidden in the Epistle what our stealing away the grace of our soules by the hands of sin which was a treasure given us to work out both our own and our neighbours salvation also by but a plain practise of the prohibited Theft in the last verse of the Epistle with making the theft a sacriledge to boot by robbing God of his glory and of his Saints whilest we concur to their damnation whom Jesus sayntified by his bitter death and passion 3. What then remaines but that as these falsities passions malices thefts are meerly the devices of the devil the multiplicity of his invented adversities to disturb the quiet of our minds and bodies by that they may not be free to serve God with a prompt obedience to his commands his meer bolts indeed to shut us for ever out of our best Paradise of glory so the Church by the practise of veracity patience goodnesse and honesty bids us work counter to the devil And for this purpose prayes to day that God will by the bolt of his efficacious grace shut out the devill with all his adversities from our soules and bodies that so by a tranquillity of serving God in the Paradise of grace in
this life our charity may enter into a security of enjoying him in the Paradise of glory in the life to come On the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost The Antiphon John 4.52 BVt the father knew that it was the same hour in the which Jesus said thy son liveth and he believed and his whole house Vers Let my prayer c. Resp Even as Incense c. The Prayer VVE beseech thee O Lord thou being pacify'd grant unto thy faithful pardon and peace that they may be both clean from all offences and serve thee with secured soules The Illustration WHat is remarkable in this Prayer is the filial language of it to the heavenly Father of whom we beg first that he will please to be pacified for the offences of his children next that he will not onely pardon the said offences but further grant unto us the highest of all favours his blessed peace the same which surpasseth all understanding as we have heard formerly and the reason why we are not content with pardon unlesse we have also the peace of conscience to boot that which is never struck up between God and man without a kisse of love the close of this prayer tells us because as by pardon we are cleansed from all offences so by peace we are made able to serve his Divine Majesty with secured souls And of what are we secured of his undoubted reconciliation to us by the kisse of love which sealed a happy peace between us Blessed JESU how fond the holy Ghost is of us that inspires aged men to demean themselves in their devotions like little children sitting in the laps of their loving parents For such is the language of this prayer even as in a word or two we said to God Almighty Kisse and be friends for without a kisse of love it is impossible to hope for peace of conscience to serve God with souls secured that we are in his favour But that this glosse may appear to be as congruous to the other service of the day as to the prayer above see how by S. Paul the holy Ghost speaks to us to day as to little children bidding us walk warily and be wise redeeming lost time and wisely now leave to run after the rattles of our own inventions and learn to understand what is the will of God to forbear the riotous company of sinners and to converse with Saints those that are not glutted with the wine of worldly pleasures but filled with the grace of the holy Spirit which makes them never speak in other language then in psalmes hymnes or spiritual canticles sung in their hearts to our Lord God or then in some thankesgiving to him in the name of Jesus Christ that hath made us subject to one another without any other fear then of our Lord and Saviour from whom we are confident to obtain pardon of our sins testified with a pledge of peace given us by a kisse of love as often as we shall like dutiful children demand it And if we take the Gospel in that mysticall sense wherein the Expositours do explicate the parable thereof we shall find this glosse we have made to be hugely suitable thereunto For the Expositours will have the soul of man to be the Lord or little King who demands of her father Christ the great King of heaven cure of a sick son a depraved will and imployes all the senses as so many servants sent to beg this cure when the soul renounces the world the flesh and the devil in holy baptisme and is by that Sacrament as by a touch of the virtue of our Saviour cured of her ague her inordinate desires and appetites and this at the seventh hour that is to say by the seven-fold healing Spirit of the holy Ghost we shall then see this prayer is penned in a language speaking though in other tearmâ— the very sense of this Gospel too For what doth the pardon begged in the prayer allude unto but original sin remitted by holy baptisme and actual sin forgiven by the Sacrament of penance and to the pledge of peace sealed with the kisse of love when by the Sacrament of the holy Eucharist we see our selves not onely set as it were like darlings in the lap of Christ but even the blessed Trinity delighted to dwell in our hearts cleansed as above from all offence and serving God with secured soules that then all is well between us and our heavenly Father when in testimony thereof his Divine Majestie makes our soul here his temporal throne that we may hope to have his bosome our eternal tabernacle in the world to come And thus we see how particularly this Prayer is grounded on the other service of the day what ever common place of piety it seems to be to those that will not study the special mysterie thereof The Epistle Ephes 5. v. 15. 15 See therefore brethren how you walk warily not as unwise but as wise 16 Redeeming the time because the dayes are evil 17 Therefore become not unwise but understanding what is the will of God 18 And be not drunk with wine wherein is riotousnesse but be filled with the Spirit 19 Speaking to your selves in Psalms and hymns and spirituall canticles chaunting and singing in your hearts to our Lord. 20 Giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father 21 Subject one to another in the fear of Christ. The Explication 15. THe Apostle here speaks to the Ephesians out of the abundance of his care when he bids them see how they walked as if the least trip in them now they had so clear a day so bright a sun-shine to walk in as is that of the Gospel were unsufferable in regard the word of God was like a lanthorn to their footing Psal 118.105 shewing them where they might fix everystep securely and walk converse warily as if they were to render an account not onely for every idle action but for every idle word Mat. 12.36 since they had the honour to be instructed by Jesus Christ the wisdome of the eternal Father how to lead their lives here so religiously wary as that they need not fear to live eternally happy in the next world And not to do this S. Paul here tels them is folly and they that do so are not wise but fools to wast away that precious time in idlenesse which was given them to work out their salvation in with fear and trembling lest by loosing any part of the time allotted them for this end they might by sudden death be prevented in that very losse of time they made and so with the foolish virgins be shut out of heaven as not ready nor fit to enter in when the Bridegroom comes by with whom or never they must be admitted in 16. And that the Apostle in the verse above intimated their regard to a good use of time in their conversations this verse restifies bidding them not onely have a care to