out of the strong shall issue sweetnesse The Lyon of the Tribe of Judah hath infused honey into the teeth of all these Lyons he le ts loose upon his Church and a resigned patient shall taste more the honey then he shall feele the teeth of the beast that quartereth him They therefore who will finde the suavity of persecution must suck it out of Christs Passion where it lyes ready made and not amuse themselves to work it out of the order of Gods providence wherein it rests implicated in the folds of many mysteries and our curiosity in seeking it will return us rather Sauls anxiety upon his enquiry of Samuels ghost then Sampsons sweetnesse in the Lyons jawes which he found when he looked not for it And out of S. Pauls mouth who was once a raging Lyon till he was killed by him of whom Sampson was a figure we may take this hony to dulcifie all those bitternesses of our lives 2 Cor. 4.18 Our tribulation which presently is momentanie and light worketh above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory in us Quod in praesenti est momentantum leve tribulationis nostrae supra modum in sublimitate aeternum gloriae pondus operatur in nobis HAving thus seene and considered Gods hand and manner in the figure of his dearly beloved Son upon the Crosse by which he conveyed him to his Coronation let us now consider also Christs method in ordering his Church after he professeth that all power is given him both in heaven earth so as the sufferings of the Body to such an Head must needs be by order not infirmity For after he had suffered sufficiently for more worlds then he shed drops of blood and for as many ages as worlds he might well have allowed the members of his body all joy and felicity for the rest of those few Ages this world was to subsist But he who was Wisdome it self chose another method as he told his dearest friends Ego dispone vobis sicut disposuit mihi Pater meus regnum He copyed his Fathers hand upon himselfe in his drawing and figuring his Church upon earth Lu. 22.29 I dispose to you as my Father disposed to me a kingdome so as after his glorious body was enthroned at the right hand of God he left his mysticall body hanging as it were upon the crosse in Calvary for some Ages wounded by the launces of the Gentiles and vilified by the scornes of the Jewes In this posture it hung exposed many yeers a scandall to the eyes of the one and folly to the understandings of the other insomuch as the extreme passions of this body might well have extorted out of flesh and blood a Deus meus ut quid dereliquisti me The afflictions were so intollerable as no body that had not a God for the head of it Mat. 27. My God why hast thou forsaken me could have growne and prospered in so bleeding an infancie It seemeth Gods unsearchable Wisdome designed Christs mysticall body to be formed on the face of the earth as his naturall body was in the wombe of the Virgin in the composition whereof there was onely the Spirit of God working upon the pure blood of the Virgin and in like manner the vertue of the holy Ghost came upon the blood of the Martyrs forming and animating the Primitive Church For in those times we find the vertue of the Spirit working most upon blood to forme and procreate the body of the Church And thus by the admirable vertue of Christs Passion it seemed not an effusion but rather a transfusion of all the blood was drawne conveying it into other veynes and the same spirits seemed to be carryed in it into other bodies which successively making the same use of it might make one think it had been the very same blood infused into other veyns which like channels rather then owners of it poured it out againe so freely and in this way of generation the Saints and Martyrs procreated the descent of the family of Christ for above three hundred yeeres The Apostles seemed to poure out their blood into the veynes of their Disciples and Successors and they in like manner to transfuse theirs into those discended from them and by this successive transmission the Progeny of the Church was deduced through the Primitive Persecutions This was the operation of that one heart Act. 4.32 and one soule the Apostle saith was then in the multitude of the Beleevers And indeed the records of those times may well make one reflect on the doctrine of Pythagor as in his transmigration of soules for in those times the spirit of acting and suffering which was transmitted from one to another seemed so much the same as one might fay there was a transmigration of the soules of the first Martyrs into the surviving issue of their spirit Herod is said to have suspected that the soule of S. John Baptist had passed into Christ when he said Mat. 14.1 This is John the Baptist he is risen from the dead and therefore vertues work in him Hic est Joannes Baptista ipse surrexit à mortuis ideo virtutes operantur in eo The doctrine of transition of soules from one body to another was much followed in those times But we may wel in a pious and sober sense say that the soule of S. Peter seemed transmigrated into his successors for many yeeres for the same spirit of fervour in watering with their blood the Rock whereon Christ had planted his Church possessed above thirty Popes successively after S. Peter and so all their bodies seemed to be cast as a mold of earth upon that rock whereupon the faith of the Romane Church did spring the plants whereof even all acknowledge their Churches to be who have now severed themselves from that radicall communion and forgetting the benefits of those Josephs who sed them in the famine of their Faganisme are now laying burthens on their children In this manner the Primitive Church was nourished in her cradle instead of having milk given her to make blood of she sucked blood and made milke of it by the which she hath nursed the succeeding times for in all the Churches following persecutions the faithfull have been sustained and refreshed by that milk which the blood of those times did make for them for their examples descending with their doctrines hath confirmed and strengthned as well as alimented all their future progenie It is an admirable evincement of the truth of Christian Religion to remark that as it was founded upon a supernaturall conjunction of a body that might suffer to a person that was impassible so it was propagated by the destruction of those bodies which were the organs of tradition of it to posterity for the wounds of the Apostles and the Martyrs seemed but so many more mouthes opened to speak out louder the mysteries of the Gospel and to prove those verities by daring to dye for them which were not to
equanimity and patience the devill himselfe knew not how to calumniate his pride would not allow him to own such expressions of power and so that temper of passivenesse was accepted as divine often when the thunder and lightning of the other side of their Commission passed for diabolicall Patience then seemeth a property which God doth not allow the devill so much as to counterfeit the possession of He is permitted to transfigure himself into an Angel of light rather then into the forme of a resigned contented sufferer as being an unalienable prerogative of Christ and the most dangerous delusion whereby he could worke upon the spirits of men and therefore this is the speciall difference between the suggestions of good and evill spirits to us when they come both clothed in pious supervestures that the hand of the proud spirit leaves alwaies some elation disquiet or impatience in us to vent and divulge the virtues and graces he seemeth to dispense but the sincere inspiration of the holy spirit alwaies calmeth and stilleth any emotion or impatience in the possession of his graces and leaves no heat or glowing in our hearts that solliciteth us to evaporate that spirit of joy and peace by which they are solaced but humbly and patiently to enclose them within the humility of our own breasts And thus true Christians by the virtue of their Comforter cording to Christs advice possesse their soules in patience which giveth them so inviolable a possession of their mindes as the devill can neither distraine them by the power of his ministers injuries nor distract them by the paintings of his owne artifices Wherefore God doth punish the devill by allowing him the exercising of the patience of his Saints as S. Gregory saith Holy Job was more Sathans torturer then Sathan was the others tempter for Jobs felicity was not repealed by God but only translated out of prosperity into adversity which is the mother-tongue of the Saints Patience is so unintelligible even to the devils subtilty as if he could conceive it he might quench his flames with it but God in punishment of his first strange impatience in not resting quieted with his condition hath made eternall impatience the fuell of his tortures and on the contrary Patience which induceth an equality in the Saints in all their various vexations of this life is a kinde of image of the state of their beatitude while in all their externall commotions they retaine a smooth and even composure of mind which is a kind of image of eternity that is alwaies the same and in relation to this S. Paul states the highest virtue of the glory of Christ in this Coloss 1.2 of remaining in all patience and longanimity with joy so as that work which all the voluptuary arts are long about and after much labour make but a little joy and quickly looseth it again patience finisheth in a moment and converteth all into delight and satisfaction and treasureth it up as an eternal provision nay patience is so powerfull as it can turne into pleasure all those occurrences which sensuality must run away from to save her petty joyes All sorts of injuries of fortune or of time are presently translated by this vertue into nourishment and delectation for patience as Tertullian saith hath God answerable for all she layes up in his hand if she deposite an injury in his hand he is her revenger if a losse he is her reimburser if a sickness he is her mediciner if death he is her reviver What a freedome doth God allow Patience to make him her debtor of all she commits to his trust And thus we see unless we can finde somewhat that God cannot convert into joy there is nothing that doth not return that profit to Patience The Philosophers commended Patience highly because they accounted suffering an evill which that did asswage and mitigate but a Christian may in regard that it is good for him to suffer esteem Patience as the best of his virtues because it keeps him the longest in that which is so good for him Fortitude or active courage runs through difficulties with all the haste it can Patience goes on leisurely and enjoyes the good of suffering and on it begets mortification and humility which are the legitimate issue of a regenerate man and by this constant assuefaction inurement to sufferings some become by degrees as it were impassible and lovers of trialls for as fire doth no longer burn ashes the which receiving no hurt from it doe seeme to love the fire and to cherish and conserve it so one that is consummated in Patience comes often to a state of being no more diminished by afflictions then ashes are by fire and to desire rather to keepe alive the fire of his tribulations then to exstinguish it for perfect Patience doth not decline suffering but suppresses immoderate sorrow which is the best office for it is so provident as not to deduct at all from the matter of our meriting but only to mitigate the molesting part of our affliction and thus contriveth our advantages so well as we may enjoy the deserving portion of our troubles and not be desolated or oppressed by the sorrowfull property of them We see also Christs method in carrying them who were to convert the world through all sorts of tortures that their Patience might be a meritorious miracle which was a better quality then their powers of speaking all tongues casting out of devills or curing all diseases Their patience in their own wounds was a more advantageous grace then their gifts of cures upon all maladies for by that they improved their own soules and by this they did but repaire the bodies of others they were but organs to passe these miracles into the world but they were owners of the other divine quality And the residence of the Holy Ghost in them may be said to be express'd by their Patience and by their other miracles only a transition of him through them Whereupon S. Chrysostom saith that to suffer patiently is a greater gift then to raise the dead for indeed we are but debtors to God for this and we have Christ our debtor for the other and it may be there will be as many pearles even in number hanging upon the crownes of the Apostles and Martyrs depending on their Patience as on their powers S. Justin Martyr one of the greatest lights of the primitive times confesseth that the stupendious equality and constancy of the Christians in all their pressures convinced him of a divine inspiration thereof and Antiquity testifies infinite numbers of conversions upon the same perswasion Before Christ dignified Patience and rendred it so meritorious the Heathens were so disposed to honour it by the light of nature as this transcendency of it in Christians easily prevayled with them to seeke an author of it even above all that they had before accepted for their gods of whom they had no records but of their delights and volupties
have to his glory then our wills may be concurrent with Gods moved by the presumption of our understanding upon the concluding it selfe rationally satisfied with the causes of such events For this adherence is upon a worse ground then the other suspension in regard it resteth upon Reason more then upon Faith So they who are conformed to Gods pleasures as they suppose themselves informed of the equity of them may be better said to adhere to their own sufficiency Psal 138. Thy knowledge is become marvailous of me it is made great and I cannot reach to it then to Gods sentence Therefore in all temptations of inspection and prying into the causes of various successes let us quickly break off all such consults with this of the Psalmist Mirabilis facta est scientia tua ex me confortata est non potero ad eam and in such a disposition even our sorrow may be acceptable when our self-fufficiency on the other side is much more unconformable to the will God though it produce an acquiescence to the present occurrencies We ought then with great care and vigilancy to oppose this propension in our nature to retrive satisfactory causes in all our crosses and exigencies For this is a crooked line from the first point and so distorts our thoughts the more the farther they are extended in it All these premisses well weighed will afford us clearly this conclusion that in publick adversities and private afflictions our will may seem to differ frō Gods in the matter of present calamities as in the prevailing of injustice or the detriments we suffer by our enemies so our wills be conjoyned with the divine will in the reason of our desiring what we doe that is when we wish that difference only as we conceive it more conducent to Gods glory And so the very rise of our discordancy is from the stock of a finall conformity Jer. 17 4. I am not troubled and the daies of man I have not desired thouknowest and in this disposition of our infirme nature we may say with the Prophet in all our imperfect adherence Et ego non sum turbatus diem hominis non desideravi tu scis When our desires are not referd to any human projects but directed to the Vniversail accomplishment of Gods orders Psal 106. The just shall see and shall rejoyce and all iniquity shall stop her mouth who is wise and will keep these things and will understand the mercies of our Lord they fall not under the notion of desiring the daies of man but of God And so I will pertinently as I conceive close up this point with the Psalmist who after having given much councell and consolation to the afflicted maketh up and sealeth all with Videbunt justi latabuntur omnis iniquitas opilabit os suum quis sapiens custodiet haec intelliget misericordias Domini CHAP. IX Advises of the readyest way to consolation in all afflictions WHen Christ Jesus was much lesse beleeved then he is now by you and did but command blind Bartimaeus to be called to him Marc. 10.49 they who were sent for him advised him to be of good comfort only upon this motive of his being called as if Christs taking but notice of him had been sufficient security even for the miracle he wanted May not I then very justly counsell you to take comfort and bringing you a more consolatory message which containeth not only a call but a contract for your reliefes the which is specified in this voice of Christ addressed to you Mat. 11.28 Come ye to me all that labour and are burthened and I will refresh you take my yoke upon you and you shall find rest to your soules If the blind man then cast off his garment came leaping to his single call you may well put off all coverings of darknesse and disconsolation from your hearts and come cheerfully not onely to this vocation but to this covenant which is as a counter-security given you by God to save you harmlesse in all your engagements in the three Covenants of sufferance wherein I have shewed you your obligations For here is rest to your soules passed by contract to you by the word of Truth it selfe when you are possessed of this peace and case of your hearts they shall feele the retrenchment of your worldly accommodations little more then our bodies doe the abscission of some excrescent portions For faithfull hearts are as little damnified by any such rescinding or diminution of the conveniencies of this life as bodies by losse of haire Therefore as the remedy of all consists in the assecution of this promise of Christ so the onely meanes of compassing it is the resorting to him for it in that manner prescribed by his call you may all think your selves nominated in this Proclamation of grace as you are qualified with the conditions specified of being in labour and under burthens and yet you may easily mistake what loads you are called to bring first to be discharged of your temporall gravations that lye upon you may goe neere to hasten you too much in your starting forward into this course of reliefe without looking out and laying uppermost that burthen which must be first removed before you can hope for this lightning and exoneration which is proposed unto you And indeed these times without a particular prevention by the grace of God are likely to tempt many to come to Christ with their first suit as he did in the Gospel that came with his first motion of complaining on his brothers detention of his inheritance and desiring Christ to right him in that oppression Luk. 12.18 this was the heaviest burthen whereof he was sensible of some unjust sequestration lying upon him But we know Christs answer cleereth this case to us that his call doth not summon such pressures to come in for ease in the first place The greedy man who had constituted Christ for his temporall Judge made himselfe a Delinquent in what he was a Judge of and found him no Judgel in what he would have had him one And so shall all those who come to Christ to commence their first suit about any temporall damages find this plea cast out rather then admitted and their burthens will but grow the heavier by this earnestnesse to be discharged of them they will be but like weights taken off from their backs and laid upon their heads where they will more annoy them It most importeth us then to be rightly resolved of what burthen we ought first to seek our discharge for it is one of so strange a nature as the increase of the weight diminisheth alwayes the feeling and sensiblenesse of the carryer And this insensiblenesse as it augmenteth doth likewise aggravate the weight so as there is a great perill to leave never so little of this matter that hideth it selfe by the same degrees it heightens in us These qualities are so
of tentations so as being furnished with this ability adequate to our charge we may well be concluded eased by this extenuation of our burthens for being thus entred into Christs yoke we finde that gentle and our cariage very portable God doth then give vertue and vexation concomitantly as the Apostle affirmeth God is faithfull 1 Cor. 10.13 who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able but will make also with temptation issue that you may be able to sustein So that I may safely promise in Christs name what he did to his Disciples when they were entering into the lists of persecutions that all these signs shal follow all those who do intirely strip and devest themselves of the pressures and incumbrances of their conscience They shall take serpents in their hands without offence Mar. 16.27 and though they drink poison it shall not hurt them though they remain incircled with the thorns and stings of affliction they shall not feele any noxious sharpnesse or asperity in them and they shall drink of the cup of sorrow without any aversion or nauseousnesse but shall rather cheerfully pledge Christ in it saying in conformity to him shall not we drink of the Cup which our Head hath given us And this cup which the Psalmist calleth the Wine of compunction shall then have a much better relish then that of Babylon which we have eased our hearts of For as the Holy spirit saith Pro. 27.7 A soule that hungereth taketh all bitternesse for sweet and such soules Christ calleth blessed in their hungering and thirsting and yours after this pious motion and exercise in resorting to this call of Christ and unloading themselves of all their spirituall onerations will certainly get this good appetite which our Saviour calls a blessed hunger and shall be satisfied with present peace and tranquility of spirit and an hopeful expectation in a future blessednesse The sooner then and the sharplyer we deplore our sinnes the readier and greater deduction we make from all our other sorrows according to the assertion of the Apostle 2 Cor. 7.10 The sorrow that is according to God worketh pennance unto salvation that is stable Upon which words S. Chrysostome saith excellently sorrow is given us not to grieve for any thing we cannot remedy and so it is onely a receipt for the cure of sinne for it augmenteth all other evills whereunto it is applyed and recovereth us onely out of that extremest of all mischiefs Therefore sorrow was onely made for sinne out of which it was first extracted and so like a moath corrodeth and consumeth the matter that produced it And this holy corrosive is so powerfull as it will eat away not onely all the dead flesh whereunto it is applied but even take out and obliterate the foulest brands can have been impressed upon our hearts Therefore if any for feare of a little burning in the hand in the heat of these times hath chosen rather to stigmatize his heart with the marke of apostasie let not even such a desperat character doubt of an effaceing by the virtue of sincere contrition for as soone as it is rightly applyed the operation is unquestionable Let not then any such set Caines stamp upon this his first brand for could Judas have applyed this corrosive he needed not have used his cord to suppresse the noysome stenches of his conscience This receipt would have broken his heart so happily as to have kept his bowells from bursting for we know that a broken and contrite heart repayres even all her owne breaches If in these evill dayes then there should be any that hath done worse then the disciple that left his mantle and fled naked to save himselfe for if any to save their clothes and coverings of conveniencyes should have left Christ and have joyned with the party armed against him yet even he is called by this voice of Come all ye that labour to come back and unload himselfe of this unfaithfull pusillanimity No weight that sorrow can bring in can be too much for him to take off who carieth all things by the power of his word and whose mercy is above all his works and consequently must needs be far above all ours Wherefore Despaire seems miserably to vie against the superiority of Gods mercy in this accursed dejection there is this derogating contention whereas faithfull sorrow hath alwayes an obliging confidence He therefore that cannot find in his heart to give so much as sorrow towards the redemption of his sinnes ought not to expect so much as pitty even in their eternall vindication Wherefore in this particular prescript of Consolation I may aptly say with the Apostle 2 Cor. 7.10 2 Cor. 2. Who is it can make me glad but he that is made sorry by me For the efficacy of all I can minister unto you dependeth upon your orderly application of this godly sorrow for your sinnes which may reconcile you to the man of sorrow who under that notion was the mediator between God offended and man condemned and so admitteth not even his owne merits to mediate peace between God and man after his offending him without the intervention of this sorrow of man so that this house is as much better then that of feasting as reparation of a house is better then ruining in so much that though you have no other house left to put your heads in this of penitence which it may be the ruines of your other have built up for you may prove such a receptacle of peace and rest when your sinnes are rased and demolished as you shall confesse in comparing the change of houses that Your bricks are fallen down Esay 9.10 and you have built with square stones and have by the hands of this holy contrition converted your ruinous tenement into reedified temples from whence all the devout fighes are breathed up as an odour of perfume unto heaven and as the fire which was to light the odours upon the table of Incense was to be brought from the Altar of the bloody Sacrifices so the incense of our prayers and petitions must be kindled first by the ardency of our sorrow and contrition for our sinnes which answer to the outward and first Altar From thence the fire of all our zeale must be first taken that is all our petitions must take their rise from our penitency and when they are offered up in this order they doe often impetrate more then they sollicite for they obtaine not onely spirituall acquiescence but even temporall refreshments We must remember then that this holy sorrow is a kind of spirituall Baptisme which is the first gate of the Church triumphant through which all our requests must passe up to the altar so that we shall doe well to set this inscription of the Psalmist upon this portall of contrition Psal 117.20 Open ye the gates of justice to me being entred into them I will confesse to our Lord this is
order to this we see that the bleeding of the mysticall body of Christ hath alwaies offered a kinde of spirituall cement to unite and compact the parts thereof Whereupon the holy Ghost who hath this commission to produce an union in the mysticall body of Christ John 17.21 23. resembling that of the Blessed Trinity whereof he is the union as he performeth this effectively by love so he raiseth this love very often instrumentally by persecution For we know in those times when opposition to this tender body was most fierce this union was so firme and indissoluble as the holy Spirit seemeth to glory in this operation as having wrought this similitude of unity so perfectly as he pronounceth The multitude of beleevers to have had one heart Act. 4.32 and one soule so that here was that similitude accomplished in them which Christ asked thus of his Father for the beleevers in him Job 17.22 that They may be one as we also are one For this seemeth a good resemblance of that union is in the Blessed Trinity wherein there is distinction of Persons and unity of Essence since here the multitude consisting of divers persons were all one heart and one soule This simplicity and unanimity slakned even in those times by the same degrees that the pressures which lay upon this arch of the Church were lightned and removed But in all times we finde that a common persecution hath in some measure straitened and combined the minds consorted in that band of Religion which is the cause of their pressure and gravation So as we cannot doubt but these times have in a good proportion closed and compacted more your hearts in a mutuall zeal and charity towards one another which unity of spirit is very sutable with the uniformity of your Religion and no violence can suppresse a free exercise of this act thereof And as this sort of communication to one anothers necessities is a means left you still to exercise your charities so I hope in God you are very faithfull and active in this commerce with one another and that both sorts drive a greater trade of charity in your severall faculties then ever Those who have beene in the office of giving materiall almes doe now I hope endeavour to compensate the losses of the poore Pro. 19.17 He lendeth to our Lord that hath mercy on the poore and he will repay him the like who are Gods receivers by proving themselves the devouter and better beggers of God releefe for the common distresses and they who have received much from others upon Gods tickets do I hope now bring them in to God more fervently then ever showing him what they have received upon his account and so may be earnest solicitors for the payment of that Interest which they doe witnesse to be due upon this contract of the holy Spirit Faeneratur Domino quà miseretur pauperi vicissitudinem suam reddet ei and thus both parties may still commerce for their severall accommodations those who have beene Gods creditors in the sense aforesaid may seeme more sensible of the suspension of this quality then of their personall deprivements and may most zealously intercede for the supplying of that office by some other means and those who are miserably distituted now by the obstruction of this conduit of reliefe may be so gratefully zealous as to intend more the bringing into God the accounts due to such ministers of his as stand now suspended then their owne private suppeditations and both shall by this means hold their proper parts in this consort of charity the one shall forget their good works before God and the other shall remember him of them Thus spirituall good works may still multiply among you while the one part of you sorroweth most for the intermission of the practicall ministry of them and the other feeleth more their religious gratitude to their distressed benefactors then their private grievances And this kinde of weeping in your widowes and shewing the coats and garments which the Dorcases were wont to make them Act. 9.59 who are now dead to that function is one of the likelyest meanes to obtaine their resuscitation and re-instating in that condition For as the Wiseman saith It is an easie thing for God to accommodate the poore James 5.11 Facile est Dec honestare pauperem and the Apostle S. James proposeth Jobs temporall resurrection and restauration as an object of comfort to faithful expecters of Gods time and therefore these two duties faithfully performed by both your conditions may make the highest poverty amongst you abound unto the riches of simplicity the which may also intercede so powerfully for the other part as it may prove such an Angelicall mediation as is spoken of in Job Job 33.23 If there shall be an Angel speaking for him one of thousands to declare mans equity he shall have mercy on him and shall say Deliver him that he descend not into corruption I have found wherein I may be propitious to him the voyce of the poore bringing in these testimonies of their former equities for your Jobs whom their friends doe not know sitting in the ashes of their consumed fortunes these I say that have not made the eyes of the widdow expect nor have eaten their morsell alone such bills and evidences brought in to Christ as debts wherewith he hath charged his person may perhaps procure Jobs latter daies for such who have passed thorough his first estate and are now sitting in his second translation But in all cases these notes of the hands of the poore shall be sure assignments for that better and permanent substance which the Apostle saith is their inheritance Heb. 10. of those who have susteined a great fight of passions and have had compassion on them that were in bonds and have taken the spoile of their goods with joy For which reason this mutuall commerce of spirituall charity is that I now recommend unto you for the exercise of fraternall dilection that while you cannot turnish the Altar without the veyle with the fat of your flocks you may the more largely serve the table of Incense with these odours of internall charity What I have said in way of direction to these interiour acts of charity is to extenuate the paines of those Tobiasses who it may be are now reduced from being almoners to be their owne almes-men having scarce left for their support that which was heretofore their waste that ran over and fed their brothers But I doe not intend this as a dispensation to any who have yet any thing left which they may prudently deny themselves in contribution to the releife of such who have no portion of subsistance For now every one should square his mind by the new modell of these times and the same clay that the potter hath beene pleased to turn from a larger into a lesser vessell must attend to his present forme and not reflect upon his
then the frankincense to give it an odour of sweetnesse I shall therefore send my part of this work justified with this protestation of the Prophet Jeremy Jere. 17.16 I am not troubled following thee the Pastor and the day of man I have not desired thou knowest ego non sum turbatus to pastorem sequens diem hominis non desideravitu scis for they who have given all their dayes to God are ill advised if they pretend any part of the assignment of their exchange in the night of this Age or in the vapours of the breaths of Men and those of our function that affect much a returne of human praise from the offices of their vocation may be said to burn their own fingers while they are lighting the Candlestick of the Temple therefore my addresse of this Missive shall be Non nobis Domine non nobis sed nomini tuo da gloriam An Introduction to the following Discourse WHen Saint Paul our Christian Hercules had enumerated so many of his private labours 2 Cor. 11.13 Nothing beyond as one might have thought a non plus ultrà might have been set up upon them he seems as it were to slight all those so excellent works and to esteem all personall pressures Those things which are externall Who is weak and I am not weak who is scandalized and I am not burnt but as the out-works of charity and so quitting ea quae extrinsecus sunt when he will glory in the strength of his charity he setteth it out in his care and solicitude for the Churches distresses and so maketh Quis infirmatur ego non infirmor quis scandalizatur ego non uror the verticall point of the Pyramide of his suffering and acting charity which remaineth as an entire monument of his glory after the ruine of all theirs whose persecutions erected it and raised it to that sublimity of virtue And if our Charities have such an analogie with S. Pauls as our vocations have and our zeale beare as much similitude to his as the face of our present times doth to his dayes our part which seemeth off from the publike stage of persecution may be admitted as the most sorrowfull and distressing of all other for surely all exteriour burthens are lighter to our senses then an interiour solicitude in a publike concernment is to our spirit especially when it is in relation to the passions of the Church of Christ And this is our case Solicitude of the Church Cant. 8. who have solicitudinem Ecclesiae impressed upon our spirit in an indelible character so as there is none of your brethrens weaknesses that doth not make an impression as the Spouses seale upon our heart and upon our arme And it may be the larger our prison is the straiter the pressure of it proveth unto us as it is a restraint upon the exercise of our functions in consolating and ministring personally to you in this your fiery tryall Wherefore our hearts being exempt from this separation they take fire at the flame you are in and professe that none of you are scandalized with whom they doe not burne insomuch that the sparkles of that fornace you are in fly even through the sea upon us For every report of a fresh vexation falne upon you raiseth and sharpneth the ardour of our fellow-feeling of your tribulations Cant. 8.7 Many waters cannot quench charity nor shall floods overwhelm it so that we may say with the Spouse Aquae multae non potuerunt extinguere charitatem nec flumina obruent illam since the fire of your temptations and tryals in England passeth over seas and burneth us in Flanders and there is no matter so apt to take and entertaine this flame as our holy unction Desiring therefore much to write you some news for your comfort in these times wherein the want of Priests among you is none of your least afflictions I will tell you there is none of you which have not a kind of character of Priesthood upon you being all obliged to offer up spirituall hoasts of resignation and self-relinquishment and to lay all your naturall senses and apprehensions of your sufferings upon the Altar of the Crosse in adoration of Gods designe upon you and thus in conformity to Christ you are to become your selves both the Priests and the oblations For whiles your hearts offer up your selves and your substances to Gods holy judgements your soules exercise a kind of office of Priesthood upon your bodies and goods which are the materiall part of the oblation and by this consecrating of your sufferings they who would exterminate Priesthood in England shall consecrate as many of these Priests as they lay their persecuting hand upon and as they despoile you of your fortunes 1 Pet. 2.6 they furnish you with the fatter victimes in the function of this your holy Priesthood of offering up these spirituall hoasts acceptable to God by JESUS CHRIST Take therfore this order from the Psalmist Psal 4. Sacrifice ye the sacrifice of justice and hope in our Lord. Sacrificate sacrificium justitiae sperate in Domine and by this your meritorious exercise of Catholike Religion you shall find I hope lesse want of the Ministery of our reall Priesthood among you which may be thus supplyed even by your owne necessities while you make of all your deprivements matter of sanctification by your faithfull acceptance of them and by this disposition you enter into those holy Orders of Sacrificers which Saint Paul gave the Primitive Christians in your cases while you exhibit your bodies a living hoast holy Rom. 12.1 pleasing to God Nor doth this kind of spirituall sacrificature claime a lesse precedent then even the Sonne of God for these were part of the daily Sacrifices he offered his Father while he was upon the earth his privations incommodities and destitutions his not having so much as a house to put his head in was in this kind his daily evening sacrifice and these his quotidian sufferances did continually mediate and interpeale for our remissions You may therefore now be said to be successors of this Priesthood of Christs life which is as I may say a third kind of Priesthood Christ instituted by his life differing from the old of Aaron and that of the order of Melchisedec for it is an offering up to God the want of bread and wine for a sacrifice of selfe-resignation For why may not Christs hunger and thirst and his other wants and exigencies be fitly said to have instituted this holy order of self-sacrificing and offering up all our temporall distresses to Gods pleasure in conformity to this quotidian oblation of Christs life so as those of you who are not called to that sacerdotall function which Christ exercised in his death when he was both Priest and Sacrifice somewhat like whereunto many of us have happily by the grace of God been admitted by Martyrdome seem all called to this holy order
Man of sorrow and of no sinne so she should be a bearer of all griefs without any guiltinesse But howsoever this point is accorded by all parties Luke 2.29 35. that being the purest of all creatures she was neverthelesse the greatest of all patients When she came to redeeme her owne Redeemer by the legall ransome and was to enter into possession of her Son we may note that the joyes that were presaged her by Simeon in him were very dark and mysticall but her own sorrows very cleer and manifest For this mysterie of her having a light to the revelation of the Gentiles in her armes and the glory of thy people Israel was hard to be understood of one that was in the lowest rank of the people but this part was easie to be conceived of his being a mark of contradiction and that a sword should pierce through her own soule Nature it selfe evidenceth the miseries which mothers are lyable to from children and thus she had here her sorrowes and her sufferings writ to her in the common Alphabet of nature and her joyes and consolations cyphered out onely to her in the figures and characters of grace which are so hard to be decyphered though it may be she had the key of them But howsoever her faith was to be exercised by a tedious and very sudden tryall in affliction She quickly found the sword in her soule for we may easily conceive what a wound her sudden flight into Egypt was how many feares distresses and anxieties pierced her tender heart in that laborious flight And sure the sword of Herod that parted so many mothers and children pierced her soule even while she possessed her child she may well be judged to have out-suffered any of them in their own losses for she had the griefe of being the occasion of them all upon her heart so as the sword that was drawn directly against her soule though the stroke did not light upon it as it was aymed yet it may be thought to have wounded her in a sharper manner then it did any it fell bloodily upon for her exquisite charity must needs feel all their anguishes and passions who were thus afflicted as personating her Thus we see how she began her possession of her Son with the sorrows of a multitude of mothers inflicted on her And if we look upon her being dispossessed of her Son there we shall see the sword piercing her soule in so horrid a manner as the paines which all the daughters of Jerusalem ever had in the birth or death of their children were but shadows of her torture Whereupon S. Bernard saith Neither tongue can expresse nor heart conceive the dolours wherewith the holy bowels of this Mother were excruciated Now Blessed Virgin you pay with rigorous interest that pain which Nature was not allowed to exact of you in your delivery the pangs which you felt not in the birth of your Son are infinitely replicated upon you at his death When we consider the Mother of Christ standing by the Crosse and seeing her Son under those nails thorns and scourges and all the other tortures the picture whereof is enough to wound any Christian heart with what hand can we hope to touch this dolefull figure of the Blessed Virgin to give it a lively resemblance I will therefore leave it veyled with this reason upon it Par nulla figura dolori the not being pourtraictable being the neerest similitude can be made of this figure of disconsolation That which reporteth most to our purpose is that by the not being able to comprehend the immensity of the sufferings of the Mother of God we may be the lesse apt to apprehend any extremity in our owne when she who had at least no actuall sin to expiate had so much sorrow to exercise her vertue how shall we who have so much sin to satisfie for wonder at any sufferings whereof we have so much need to sanctifie us There is then no reason why we should feare to be mistaken in taking crosses for commodities indignities for honours poverty for treasure since the eternall Wisdome and divine understanding hath councelled this acceptation of them not onely by his advise but by his Mothers president and his owne personall investure of them He who is both the supreme goodnesse and the supreme power chose by those low humbled means to redeem us and by the same we must perfect our salvation the work must be finished by the same instruments by which it was begun Christ told his Disciples there were many mansions in his Fathers house but never gave them notice of any other way to any of them but this of the crosses and miseries of this world And surely as he said of the mansions so may we say of the marches to them if there had been another passage he would have told it them This narrow way and strait gate is all the direction we find either by his life his doctrine or his death Mat. 11.12 The kingdome of heaven suffereth violence the violent bear it away Regnum coelorum vim patitur violenti capiunt illud is the word or Matte belonging to the Armes of the Gospel and as Christ said No body ascendeth into heaven but he that descended out of heaven therefore he vouchsafed to come downe to live out this way which he imprinted upon his sacred humanity So that now this way lyeth so fairly marked out by the prints of his steps in his return to his eternall mansion as no body that looketh up to heaven can misse the seeing of it though it be not the via lactea of the Poets The milkie way The bloody way but the via sanguinea of the Prophets and the Apostles It is traced out more fairly in the firmament of a Christian which is the Gospel then the other is in the materiall skie The life of Christ is such a sequence and connexion of bright and shining sufferings as shew our souls as intelligibly the way to heaven as those stars doe our eyes that sensible track in the firmament We may cast our eye upon this Galaxie or constellation of humility and depression in Christs life we shall see it illustrious and shining in an humiliation under all sorts of creatures He humbled himselfe to the Angels he vouchsafed to receive comfort of an Angel as if his necessity not humility had required it When he was hungry he was pleased to take foode as almes from the Angells when he could have turned stones into bread He humbled himselfe to man and woman remayning obedient to his Mother and to Joseph He subjected himselfe to Impious Princes to Herod Cesar Caiphas and Pilate by undergoing their burthens and their judgements He submitted himselfe to vile and infamous servants as to Malchus and to his torturers deriders and others He yeelded himselfe even to inanimate creatures suffering heat and cold to strike upon him and by iron wood thorns and reeds he indured to
medicine his minde And this is a ready refreshment which we have alwaies by us when we are upon our dunghill to wipe and cleanse the corruption of our sores with this recogitation of the vility of our nature which is as naturally liable to this breaking out into ulcers of miseries and tribulations as earthen pots are to be broken Therefore we may learn of Job to take off the putrefaction and ordure from our sores which is murmur and repining with this recollection that we suffer it in order to our nature and so reluctancy to this condition may in this respect seeme more unnaturall then resignation And for the other Covenant as Christians what can be more positive then S. Pauls exhorting distressed Christians not to be moved 2 Cor. 4.8 In all things we suffer tribulation but are not in distress alwayes bearing about the mortification of Jesus that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies as knowing they are appointed to tribulations And in order to a discharge of this obligation he exhibiteth to us the state of a Christian In omnibus tribulationem patimur sed non angustiamur semper mortificationem Jesu in corpore nostro circumferentes ut vita Jesu manifestetur in corporibus nostris So as we see a Christian is to coppy and manifest the life of Jesus and we cannot render it so easie to be known by any way as by having his most notorious markes visibly upon it which are Crosses for we cannot possibly draw the figure so resembling in sanctity as in suffering for our bodies are helps to us in this similitude as impediments in the other We must then seeke to finish this feature of Jesus as exactly as we can since in this respect we must be all Jesuites as well as Christians and thus these times may cōduce to the making you all Jesuites according to this order of S. Paul And if you enter piously into this society of Jesus you will not feare how you stay here or when you remove from the society of men for if you have the figure of Jesus stamped upon you in any pressure whatsoever or cut out in you by the sharpest violences you shall rise from the want of bread up to that nuptiall feast in which your present nakednesse shall passe for your Wedding garment and from the bar of men you shal be called up to the throne it selfe where the Crucified sits to condemne all that appeare not with that impression on them This beleefe of a Christian's being pressed to serve under the Crosse was so received in the Primitive times as S. Ignatius who lived in the age of the Apostles when he was first bound professed that then he began first to be a Christian and S. Augustine in conformity to this opinion telleth one That if he had not yet beene entred by any tribulation he had not begun to be a Christian and Saint Martin was so imbued with this Doctrine as when the Divell appeared to him in a glorious forme suggesting to him that it was an apparition of Christ Christ doth not appeare to his servants in this life but on the Crosse he answered Christus non nisi in cruce apparet suis in hac vitâ intimating that a Christian must not understand felicity in this life to be a proper image to represent Christ to his servants And it referreth to this what is recorded of Christs apparition to S. Peter when he was stying out of Prison in Rome by much perswasion of the Christians a little before his Mar tyrdome For Christ met him with a sad afflicted countenance and being asked by S. Peter whither he was going He answered To be crucified againe by which the Apostle understood his Masters order and obeyed it cheer fully returning back to the Prison and soon after to the Crosse which was annexed to his Commission of Pasce oves meas Feed my sheep Follow me in this Schedule of Sequere me So as Christs bequeathements to his dearest friends upon earth are but severall crosses in the procession of this life through our valley of teares The hatred of the people the malice of the Magistrates imprisonments and flagellations were the onely Legacies you know Christ left his Disciples and in this he made them his heires first in this world giving them all he dyed possessed of so as the more you share in this his temporall estate you are the truer heires of this his Testament which was writ in his martiall hand but signed and sealed by his eternall for the Hand of his Deity is set to all the Donations of Glory which he made in his Testament to the performers of his Will by a cheerfull acceptance of these his affignements in this world Whereupon S. Augustine adviseth us not to consider what paine we have under the rod but what part we have in the Will And for this cause the Apostles were not styled by Christ Mat. 5.10 blessed in their power over Devils or the grace to raise the dead but in their subjection to sufferings he annexeth a beatitude to this estate of their being cursed persecuted and vituperated with all sorts of injuries to this condition he assigneth joy and exultation expresly Be glad rejoyce for your reward is great in heaven Mat. 5. Gaudete exultate quia merces vestra copiosa est in coelis And we may note that of the eight states of Beatitude which Christ exhibiteth in the Gospel foure of them consist directly in suffering and that those also that are somewhat referred to action which are the being mercifull and the being peace makers are made half also of passive matter For there must be misery and troubles for the subjects of mercy and pacification And for that of spirituall hunger and thirst it is set after poverty and mournning as if they had got us this good appetite and the other of purity of heart comes in as it were after the soules having beene strained through those pressures as though this passing of it were requisite to bring the heart to this cleannesse and depuration and when we consider Christs life how he walked himselfe in this narrow way to this beatitude we cannot reply against this order of following him through many tribulations into his Kingdome for if Christ suffered so much that he might justly give us his glory what ought not we to doe and suffer that we may receive it It must needs be then a great folly to imagine we can attain this glory without pains when even God laboured and suffered so much that he might dispose of it For Christ himselfe telleth us Joh 5.23 27. That the Father hath given all judgement to the Sonne and produceth this as the reason Because he is the Sonne of man that is for having merited it by the labours and passions of this humane life and S. Paul explaineth this cleerly where he saith Ph l. 27. Christ humbled himselfe made
scarce discerne at first which by degrees came to a fulnesse equal to the necessities is was desired for In like manner we must not look our prayer should in an instant produce an effusion of patience and comfort upon us at first it begins to show us some little visible token of Gods conversion towards us so by a sequence of more apparence of his grace we come by these paces into that full measure of patience which the Psalmist acknowedgeth in secundùm multitudinem dolorum meorum in corde meo Psalm 93.19 According to the multitude of my sorrowes in my heart thy consolations have made my soule joyfull consolationes tuae laetificaverunt animam meam And the holy Psalmist who is the King of patience and of prayer hath left the Church his treasures in both of them out of which she extracts most of her publike prayer And certainly whosoever shal follow this method in prayer of patience perseverance and expecting our Lord shall finde the same fruits springing out of tribulation and God hath preserved for us Davids confections to minister to all our distresses the which wee may take at all howers out of the divine custodiary of the Psalmes which are prognostiks of all our diseases and a ready confection of remedies wee may repaire to in all occasions and emergencies With good reason I would therefore humbly advise all in their severall necessities to resort thither both for a patterne of prayer and a precedent of the rare effects of it There every suffering condition may finde this advise Exultent Psalm 39. Let all that seeke thee rejoyce and be glad upon thee laetentur omnes qui quaerunt te The very seeking of God in sincerity is the first breaking of the light of gladnesse through any cloud that hangs over us And this day openeth farther upon all those who advance in the fervour of prayer untill at last they come to this meridionall point of Laetati sumus pro diebus quibus nos humiliasti Psal 89. Wee have rejoyced for the dayes wherein thou hast humbled us the yeares wherein wee have seene evills annis quibus vidimus mala Not only dayes shall passe away lightly with all the weight of their evills upon them but even yeares of persecutions set upon this carriage of consolation shall rowle away as fast as daies When prayer hath atracted the spirit of patience we know then from whence wee receive it and so looke alwaies upon him for this provision in tentations that we may support them and are not anxiously studious how to fence with the world and put by the injuries and injustices of the times which unquiet and distracting solicitude in our defence proveth often the sharpest vexation as it is more internall then other violences whereas if we were resting with the Psalmist under the covering of the wings of Prayer Truth should compasse us as a shield and we should not be afraid of the feare in the night Psal 90. or the arrowe flying in the day of businesse walking in darknesse or of the mid-day devill Here are exemptions from the prejudices of all sorts of persecutions Psal 61. But yet my soule be thou subject to God because my patience is from him which these times will adapt easily enough without any cleerer application but all is comprised in this disposition of replying to our natures in all her refractory motions Veruntamen Deo subjecta esto anima mea quoniam ab ipso patientia mea CHAP. V. Of the dignity and use of Patience YOu having been presented in the precedent Chapter with this expedient of Prayer as the spirituall arme which must reach down Patience to you I beleeve it may be now conducent to the calming and sedations of your spirits to expose unto you a little the beauty and dignity of Patience which is the only pleasing figure these times can set before you The paternall care and tendernesse of God hath provided for the preservation of our feeble and fainting nature an admirable medicament which is Patience in order whereunto he disigned by intervals severall egregious documents and patterns of men which like knots upon a weake reede that confirme and strengthen it might support and fortifiye the fraile substance of humane nature by example untill even the image of the invisible God Coloss 1. and the first-born of all creatures nay the Creator himselfe of all things was to come in the fullnesse of time to take this reede of our humanitie into his hand and to make of it a scepter of Patience with which he would exercise his dominion over passion and death it selfe In the meane time lest the world should want some marks to guide it selfe by in misery he sent before him divers precursors of his Patience and his first Commissary was set out in the very morning of the world this was Abel who hath left to innocence the right and inheritance of suffering and of patience Adam was the Founder of Passion and Abel of Patience the remedy is exhibited so neere to the mischiefe sufferings were the inventions of sinne and the salve of them the prescript of innocence for which cause as their owne peculiar right and propriety Patience is not only dearer to them but more abundant in the innocent then in any other And the holy Ghost hath staid longer upon the finished copy of another picture of Patience then upon any one subject in all the draughts of his pencil for Job hath more time allowed upon him then any one image of this holy hand before the Originall of all patience exhibits himselfe whose becomming passible is so much above our comprehension as it leaveth no wonder in his patience and his vouchsafing to suffer maketh in some respect impatience now rather a prodigious thing then a naturall in his members For if we consider our selves participants of the divine nature it may seeme strange the humane should be predominant in us For which reason Christ seemeth to suppose he had imparted this power and dominion to the divine portion in us for when he had left his dearest members upon earth with a sentence of all manner of sufferings upon them he telleth them neverthelesse that He leaves them his peace Indeed it is far different as he saith from that the world giveth for his peace is to overcome come the world by patience and so the holy Ghost in whom Christ promised as much as himselfe when he removed from his distressed friends shewed the vertue of his Commission of Comforter in nothing so eminently as in Patience which he conferred upon Sufferers Surely even the power of working Miracles seemed not so great a gift as this faculty of Patience for the Apostles and Martyrs found lesse controversie in the vertue of their divine manner of suffering then they did in the prodigious part of their actions these were often imputed to the power of the devill but the astonishing part of their meeknesse
the preservation and advance of Catholicke Religion their bloud speaks in the same voyce of that of Christ it calls for mercy not revenge even upon the shedders of it So that when you are shaken with an apprehension of the extinguishment of that little light is left in our nation Judges 13 23. let your faith answer confidently with the wife of Manoah If the Lord would have destroyed us he would not have taken of our hands such holocausts The memory of which you ought to offer up daily not only as interpellations for your owne comforts in your necessities but even for the necessities of your persecutors whose wants are far more important then yours Therefore in all your private trepidations respecting your selves and in this publick earthquake referring to your Religion Heb. 20.23 fix your selves upon this centre of the Apostle Let us hold the confession of your hope undeclining for he is faithfull that hath promised and let us consider one another unto the provocation of charity and when your hearts are in this conformity 2 Cor. 7.6 though you be in the same Apostles case Your flesh having no rest but suffering all tribulation of combats without and feares within God who comforts the humble shall comfort you Accept this therfore I beseech you as a provisionall advise against the yeelding to any violent melancholy even upon the most pious occasions for that motion is alwaies to be suspected that proposeth discomposure to your spirits upon any warrant for at the best it is but Gods hand counterfeited by him who transfigureth himselfe easily into an Angel of light And when we admit a dejection consternation upon any incitement Psal 4.18 In peace in the self-same will I sleep and rest because thou Lord hast singularly setled me in hope the divel hath his matter softned to his hand at least to work upon So that we must in such temptations repaire to Davids couch to rest upon concluding In pace in idipsum dormiam requiescam quia tu Dominus singulariter in spe constituisti me But I may with probability expect to be asked whether this calme of spirit in all publick calamities and private vexations imports so dead a stilnesse as shall admit of no emotion or resentment in the distresses of the Church the gravations of our friends and all the pressures whereunto we our selves are subjected To this I can readily answer that I doe not propose this Stociall apathy or insensiblenesse in all accidents for I know the passions of sorrow and fear are not only inherencies in our infirm nature but even injanctions and ordinations of grace in many occasions We know Christ Jesus wept for his friend which few drops showred from heaven upon the ocean of this salt water with which our earth is surrounded were defigned to sweeten and sanctifie those waters by the effusion of Christs Communion into such expressions of our compatency and simpathy with our brother So that teares may upon many occasions savor more of the grace of the second Adam then of the nature of the first And for that cause we are councelled by the Apostle To weep with them that weep Rom. 12 15 for our eyes doe as it were afford currents which carry our charitie 's easilyer to their effects then any other conveyances as they sooner infuse a credit to our affections then our reason can send it by discourse For as they are sensible pledges of our communion with our neighbour in his grievance they give him the readiest security of our loves and so this water above the nature of all other retaineth and exposeth the impression and signature of what is impress'd upon it which is our charity and so our teares are taken by our neighbours as seales of our fraternall dilection With good reason then in publicke exigencies and in private occasions of just lamentations such sensible expressions of our consociation and concernment in the cause are often requisite for the efficacie of our charity addressed to others For as Saint Gregory saith No body can consolate a mourner that doth not show some concerdancy whith his minde and our heart must be first softened that it may be congruous to the intendred heart of the afflicted and thus fasten it selfe to the necessity it is to work upon Iron is best conjoyned to Iron if they be both melted together in one fire The apparence then of this simpathy is often manifestly necessary for the rendering our offices of charity beneficiall Wherefore S. Paul doth often leave the print of his teares upon his epistles as the best seales of his cordiall dilection And those passions of greef and feare which Christ was pleased voluntarily to raise in the inferiour part of his mind which passions yet never went higher then his reason aimed them were all intended to consolate us in our passions to qualifie and mitigate our sense of the infirmity of ours and to propose to us an endevour of moderating the inordinatnesse thereof that we may according to his councel aim at a similitude of that holinesse to which we cannot project an equality and his precept importeth no further duty And when Christ confessed that his soule was troubled Joh. 12.27 he both alloweth and instructeth our troubled soules which uses S. Augustine doth excellently derive from these words addressing himselfe to Christ and saying Lord you command my soule to follow but I see your soule troubled What foundation shall I seek if the rock it selfe sink But I perceive your misericordiousnesse O Lord for you are troubled by the election of your love and charity to consolate and support the infirme from bending towards desperation To this end our head took upon him the senses and affections of his members and as he doth excite us to high aspirings he doth sympathize with us in low imbecilities So we may suppose Christ as he doth speaking thus unto us You have heard the voice of my fortitude calling to you and you have heard the voice of your owne infirmity speaking in me I minister force that you may run nor doe I retard or excuse you from making haste but owning your timidity I levell the path of your ascensions Hence is cleerly collected that a moderate griefe delivered in decent expressions and proportioned to the importance of either publike or private occasions is not onely alwayes pertinent but very often meritorious and S. Gregory sheweth how holy Job complyed with both these duties of grieving and not transgressing Blessed Job kept his Mind in an excellent equality that he might neither seeme insensible of the hand of the corrector nor incensed against the judgement of his sufferings Therefore when he had lost all his substance and his children it is said he rose and tore his garments shavea his head and falling to the ground he adored Joh 20. His rending his robe and his shaving and falling to the ground declared that he was sensible of the paines