A MISSIVE OF CONSOLATION: SCENT FROM FLANDERS, TO THE CATHOLICS OF ENGLAND.  LUC. 21.19. In patientia vestra possidebitis animas vestras. 1 COR. 1.18. Verbum crucis pereuntibus quidem stultitia est: iis autem qui salvi fiunt, id est, nobis, Dei virtus est. 
AT LOUVAIN, Permissu Superiorum. An. 1647.   

A preface to the Reader.  
AFter Nehemias' had informed himself of the men of Juda, that came from his country, of the state of his brethren remaining in the land, 
2 Esd. 1, 2.  and heard that the remnant left in the Province were in great affliction and reproach, he mourned and lamented their case with so sensible an affection, as the sad tincture of his heart had so much discoloured his face, that it seemed to have an unsuitable dye to his office of Cupbearer, in the King Artaxerxes his presence, though God designed the drawing great light upon his nation, from out the darkness of his looks.  
This allusion me thinks may be well fitted to this Mission of my thoughts into my country; for upon the relations of some of our refugi at brethren, coming out of our country, of the great affliction and reproach which the remainder of them groan under, and of the demolishment of the walls of spiritual Jerusalem, I may without affectation, avow the having wept and mourned many days in the sight of my Master, and I may own the honour of being a Cupbearer to such a King, as is Sovereign of all our suffering brethren, and he needed not the symptoms of my face, for the indication of my heart, but knew my sorrows to import a solicitation of relief for my distressed country; and so of his own first gracious motion, proposed the sending me into the land, with a greater Commission than I durst have pretended, which is, the bringing this his Maendat of consolation & provision from him, to repair the Temples of the holy Ghost, which may be shaken by the battery of this persecution; for humane Nature in extreme pressures, is very apt to call out with J●b, what is my strength that I can sustain it, or what is my end that I should do ●patiently? but I hope in God, all such questions will find satisfactory anwsers, from our compassionate Prince of peace, in the contents of my Commission; concerning which, I may say sincerely, my mind did at first make to our great King, rather the answer of Moses, than the suit of Nehemias', for I was much more inclined upon the first suggestion to me of this Mission, to answer I beseech thee Lord, 
Exod. 4.14.  to send whom thou wilt send, then to propound unto the King, the sending of me unto my Nation upon this great design, but when I had my own ruminations, turned into an order, from such a mouth I ought to account, as an Organ of God's voice to me, 
Exod. 4.14.  me thought I heard this Command, Go on and I will be in thy mouth, and will teach thee what thou shalt speak, so that it is the hand of Obedience, that hath moved my pen into the motion of a ready writer.  
Nevertheless, after this Injunction issued by the spiritual Court, unto which I defer all my own conceptions, I put in this plea, for a suspension of the Order, which may be as pertinently imparted unto you, in respect of your reading, as it was suggested by me, in regard of my writing this Treatise; this it was, that God had long ago set open a Granary of this spiritual food, by the hands of a charitable Joseph, in the time of the first famine, that came upon the land in this kind, and this Magazine, entitled an Epistle of Comfort, stands open and accessible to the whole people, and containeth sufficient provisions, respectively to the exigences of all conditions; so as this Missive of Consolation, which seemeth but an overly of the same Mettle, might rather seem an exuberancy of Zeal, than an exhibition of a requisite supply.  
To this my demur, I have been answered, that the spiritual appetite of sick man, which is your present estate, must be treated, as the corporeal, which is not excited by familiar, though the best diet: novelty in these cases is often requisite to introduce nourishment; to which reason I did acquiesce, considering indeed that if Authors had not still the curious infirmity of Readers, to justify their labour, in melting and casting of old matter into new forms and figures to attract curiosity to lecture, even the best spirits of our days, needed not sail out of their studies, to venture upon new discoveries, since the whole intellectual Globe of Christianity hath been long since inhabited, and perfectly cultivated, by the plantations of excellent Authors: But the nature of man considered, I may rather feaxe the finding too many sick fancies in these evil days, longing for variety of comfort, then doubt that this new transfiguration of it should prove redundant to your minds, as already filled with the precepts of Catholic Consolation. Wherefore I may hope the newness of this work may reconcile you to the prejudices of some noveltyes you may meet in it, as the strangeness of some words, and the errors of a strange Press; but since these thoughts are addressed to such as are not likely to prosecute the rigour of the law against them, for having taken their character beyond sea, and returning into England, to assist their countrymen by their faculties, I need not much seek protection for the illegal and questionable points of the impression.  
And surely considering a strange tongue, put into the mouth of the Press, a little stammering may be tolerated, specially, when the Erratas you will find here, are of a much more dispensable kind, than those we find in your Country Presses; so that even the errors you shall meet in these leaves, may serve towards the design of this work, of recommending patience to you, while the errors of English Presses minister unto you provocations, and as I had some pain, to make this foreign Mouth speak English, so if I have taken some liberty in making English speak sometimes foreign Language, I may be allowed this licence, in compensation of the other part of my constraint, especially when I may pretend to the courtesy of a stranger, in this point, of excusing some Outlandish accent in my tongue, having been nursed with many several milks, and sucked but little at the breasts of my Mother; but for that milk, which I have drawn from the breast of my spiritual Mother, the Roman Catholic Church, I hope in God there is none of that, turned or sowered by any novelty passing through my pen; for this matter can have no so ill recommendation as novelty, and variety in this kind were a very superfluous present to you in these times; wherefore I humbly refer every line, drawn by my pen, to the rule of the most holy measures, of the Catholic Church, and account this religious deference, as the salt of the Sacrifice, which is no less requisite than the frankincense, to give it an odour of sweetness.  
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 days 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 return 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 address 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 personal pressures, 
Those things which are external. Who is weak and I am not weak? who is scandalised and I am not burnt?  but as the outworks 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 Church's distresses, and so maketh Quis infirmatur, & ego non infirmor? quis scandalizatur, & ego non uror? the vertical point of the Pyramid of his suffering, and acting charity, which remaineth as an entire monument of his glory, after the ruin of all theirs, whose persecutions erected it, and raised it to that sublimity of virtue.  
And if our Charities have such an analogy with S. Paul's, as our vocations have, and our zeal bear as much similitude to his, as the face of our present times doth to his days, our part, which seemeth off from the public stage of persecution, may be admitted as the most sorrowful and distressing of all other; for surely all exterior burdens are lighter to our senses, than an interior solicitude in a public 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 brethren's weaknesses, that doth not make an impression, as the Spouses seal upon our heart, and upon our arm. And it may be, the larger our prison is, the straighter the pressure of it proveth unto us, as it is a restraint upon the exercise of our functions, in consolating and ministering personally to you, in this your fiery trial.  
Wherefore our hearts being exempt from this separation, they take fire at the flame you are in, and profess, that none of you are scandalised, with whom they do not burn; insomuch, that the sparkles of that furnace you are in, fly even through the sea upon us. For every report of a fresh vexation fall'n upon you, raiseth and sharpeneth 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 trials in England, passeth over seas, and burneth us in Flanders, and there is no matter so apt to take and entertain 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 spiritual hosts of resignation and self-relinquishment, and to lay all your natural senses and apprehensions of your sufferings upon the Altar of the Cross, in adoration of God's design upon you; and thus in conformity to Christ, you are to become yourselves both the Priests, and the oblations. For whiles your hearts offer up yourselves and your substances to Gods holy judgements, your soul's exercise a kind of office of Priesthood upon your bodies and goods, which are the material 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 despoil 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 spiritual hosts, acceptable to God by JESUS CHRIST. Take therefore 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 Catholic Religion, you shall find, I hope, less want of the Ministry of our real Priesthood among you, which may be thus supplied, even by your own necessities, while you make of all your deprivements, matter of sanctification, by your faithful 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 host, holy, 
Rom. 12.1  pleasing to God.  
Nor doth this kind of spiritual sacrificature, claim a less precedent than even the Son 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 Christ's 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 Christ's 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 temporal distresses to God's pleasure, in conformity to this quotidian oblation of Christ's life? so as those of you, who are not called to that sacerdotal 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 Martyrdom) seem all called to this holy order, consecrated by his life, of relinquishing all temporalities, and offering up your daily distresses, as sacrifices to the glory of God and his Church.  
And we, who in all humility may say, 
2 Cor. 5.20 We are Legates for Christ.  Pro Christo Legation● fungimur, being suspended by the violences of these times, from the execution of our commission, aught by all the means feisable, seek to transport our discharges to you; and since we cannot import our duties in specie, I have desired by God's motion, to make thus over to you, some little parcel of our debt.  
Saint Paul, when he was poorer than we, gloryed, that being needy he enriched many, & having nothing he possessed all things, and the wealth he transmitted by his letter to the Corinthians, 
2 Cor. 6.  was this coin of the stamp of the holy Spirit, much patience in tribulations, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in prisons; these were the revenues of the Primitive Christians, who let out all their estates to their persecutors for this Rent (Saint Paul was so well paid in) of superabundo gaudio in omni tribulatione. 
I do abound exceedingly in joy in all our tribulation.  We then (who are Saint Paul's heirs in his office, though not of his personal estate of grace) may likewise lawfully aspire to that benediction of enriching others, while we ourselves are needy and indigent.  
To make then a convenient present for you in these your necessities, I may open the tombs of the Martyrs, and Primitive Christians, where so much of this spiritual treasure is enclosed, and draw out from their rich lives and examples a plentiful support for your virtues, in all the oppressions of your fortunes; for God's providence is such towards the relief of his necessitous children, as all the wealth which the vessels of election had in them when they were temporally cast away, is not lost, but rather reserved expressly for the succeeding exigences of other times, descending upon the stream of the Church's traditions. And thus out of the wrecks of Martyrs, the chains of Confessors, and the Testaments of the Fathers, the Church maketh a vast treasure of persuasion, and exemplarity; which duly considered, I may our of this blessed store, present you with sufficient exhortations to patience and longanimity in your present practices of true Christianity.  
I is the nature of man, in any private affliction, presently to look over the single table-book of his own conscience, to try, if by the collation of his actions with his sufferings, he can make a congruous connexion of the sense of God's justice out of his faults, and his penalty put together. And in common calamities, we straightways resort to all the Church and State-Books, that lie open to our memory, and revolve them studiously, to make this coherence between the occasion and the imposition which lieth upon the public; And when we find nothing satisfactory upon this inquest, then by busy retrospection into the Annals & records of times, we set our thoughts to find out a coherence in the present sentence of God, with the precedent irritation, and (though a long Parenthesis might seem to break off the references between the one and the other) we study to make a connexion of the sense of the antecedent causes, with the emergent consequences, and we are so fond, to satisfy our reason in this (which seemeth a propriety belonging to it) as we are apt to admit great incongruities, in the collations of times, to make good our sorting of causes to their effects, thereby to join any probable coherence between our provocations, and our punishments, because it is some recreation to the pride of man, even in the time of his penance, to be able, as he presumeth, to read the hand-writing on the wall (though it be his own sentence) after the weighing of God's provocation.  
But there are some, 
Psal. 38. O Lord illuminate my darkness, that I may know what is wanting to me.  who (it may be) do sincerely make this enquiry with the Psalmist, of Domine illumina tenebras meas, ut sciam quid desit mihi; and such a search sometimes findeth case in the disquisition of the reasons of God's judgements, when it enquireth not into the equity of them, but pleadeth for some light, to facilitate a correspondency to God's design upon us; but when it is curiosity that rangeth to retrieve the order and connexion of causes to events, then commonly this agitation proveth the most laborious part of their perplexity, when they are so earnest in the Pharisees Quousque animam nostram tollu? dic nobis palam; this desiring God to speak plainer to us, is a familiar unmannerlynesse in our nature. And thus we intricate our minds the more, by this turning and winding our thoughts about, in this maze of co-ordination of causes and consequences in the changes of times, and dazzle ourselves very commonly in that inaccessible light, where God's providence resides inseparable from his essence.  
And I may well presume there are of both these sorts of solicitudes amongst you, and that some with a reverend zeal to God's justice, mixed with a natural desire of some refrigeration in the ardours of these times, do call with the holiest of Kings, 
Psal. 88.47. How long O Lord? Job. 10.2. Tell me who thou judgest me so.  Usque quo Domine? and others, in some more humane impatience and estuation of spirit, do cry out with Job, Indica mihi, cur me ita judicas.  
The message sent to the Angel of the Church of Smyrna in this same exigence, may be well divided into an answer, to both these interrogations. To the first, which may be an humble solicitation of relief, this part seemeth to belong, Dicit primus, & novissimus, scio tribulationem tuam, 
Apoc. 2.9. I know thy tribulation and thy poverty, but thou art rich. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer, be faithful until death, and I will give thee the crown of life.  & pau pertatem tuam, sed dives es; because patience and conformity to God's order, in all his impostors on us, is a more real treasure, than any we can be despoiled of, by the world's pillaging. And to the last, which may be a more anxious petition, this other part seems to be a pertinent reference, Nihil horum time as quae passurus es: esto fidelis usque ad mortem, & dabo tibi coronam vitae. This may silence curiosity, in the demand of the cause, or the limits of our affliction; since it setteth the term of our fidelity in suffering, no nearer than the end of our life; so as being enjoined not to seek an exemption until our death, we should inquire no more why we suffer, then why we live. In conformity to this principle, God hath been pleased to suggest to me the presenting you this animadversion, which may solve the difficulties of many controverted points in our weak nature concerning affliction, namely, that you are to state your case, as entered into 3. Covenants of sufferance, out of any of which, I hope in God, there is not any of you would agree to be ejected, even upon this contract, of being raised from joseph's chain up to his chariot and dominion in Egypt. The first is, as you are men; the second, as you are Christians; and the third, as you are Catholics.   

A MISSIVE OF CONSOLATION.  

CHAP. I. Of the Covenant of Suffering, as Men, the Sons of Adam.  
TO the first Covenant of sufferance you know we all give our voice, by a natural instinct, before we have scarce enjoyed so much as light for it; and our eyes may be said to set their mark to it, before we are able to set our hands to this article of eating in the sweat of our brows: for our eyes pay their sweat, which is their tears, for what we taste, even before we be able to receive bread for it; and as we grow into a state to set our hands to the Covenant of labour, we know there is scarce any thing we relish much, that doth not cost us sweat and contention; nay we are of such a constitution, that we can have no kind of delectation, the which some want and suffering must not precede, to affect us with the gust of it. So as we are sentenced to pay a great Fine of Pain beforehand for all those fleeting and transitory pleasures, which at best do but run over our senses, and so pass away, and leave them again in their drought and privation. And most commonly, the advance of all our pain and passion, rendereth us nothing of what they negotiate. So as a man, when he looketh upon himself in the best reflexes his temporary wishes can make him, shall find this brand and stigmate of Adam upon his forehead, 
Gen. 3.10. Thou shalt eat in the sweat of thy brows.  In sudore vultûs tui vescêris pane. And this is a mark which God stamped upon Adam, of another kind of signification then that he set upon Cain, for this directeth all things that occur to man in this life, to strike him, and wound his temporal estate in some kind or other; insomuch, as all the creatures do in their several manners execute this sentence upon the sons of Adam, not allowing themselves to be enjoyed by them, without stinging them in some sort, either with the anxiety of their appetite to them, preceding fruition, or the distaste of satiety following it, or with the vexation of a deprivement of them, during the ardour of their affections to them. So as we may well say, that every thing we find now, assaults our felicity in this life, in some sort to kill it, and to revive to us the memory of our Covenant of sufferance we entered into as soon as we entered into light. For which reason, the 
a Ecclesiasticus 40.1 Great travel is created to all men, and a heavy yoke upon the children of Adam, from the day of their coming forth of their mother's womb, until the day of their burying in the mother of all; their cogitations, and fears of the heart, imagination of things to come, and the day of their ending, from him that sitteth upon the glorious seat, unto him that is humbled in earth and ashes.  Wiseman proclaimeth elegantly the tenor of it, saying, Occupatio magna creata est omnibus hominibus, jugum grave super filios Adam, à die exitus de ventre matris, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  usque in diem sepulturae in matrem omnium, cogitationes corum, & timores cordis, adinventio expectationis, & dies finitionis: à residente super sedem gloriosam, usque ad humiliatum in terrâ &, cinere.  
Neither need we look back upon the defaced images of all conditions, in the dead prints of story, we have such living figures of them before our eyes, as must needs imprint upon our thoughts a lively character of the deplorable state of all mortals: Whereby out of the ruins of those houses, whereof you lament the demolishments, you may pick up some materials, to build in your minds this frame, of the instable constructure of the greatest strengths of humane happiness; 
Eccles. 10. I have seen servants upon horses, & Princes walking on the ground as servants.  and thus your friends may in their fall some way support your virtue, and your patience, when you consider how incident it is to the vicissitudes of this world, to expose unto us that changeable Scene, whereof Solomon reporteth this to us, Vidi servos in equis, & principes ambulantes super terram quasi servos. And in such capital Letters as these you may now read the articles of the Covenant of sufferance, which man is engaged in, whereof Job maketh a manifest, is signed even by all the Princes of the earth, for we find this under their hands, in all records of them, in some part of their lives, 
Job 14.1. Man born of a woman and living a short time, is replenished with many miseries.  Homo natus ex muliere vivens brevi tempore, repletur multis miseriis. In so much, as after man by sin had made misery for himself in this life, it seemeth a mercy of God, to have joined death with it, before which, even the light of nature is sufficient to show the Philosophers, that none can be counted happy. And in order to this proof, we may remark, that he who first abused death by employing it to make sin, was thought worthy of no less a punishment then the protraction of life, which he had made so afflicting by his fearing to die; and thus he was made his own torturer, by the ignorance of the evil of life, and of the good of death, which he had so much demcrited the knowing of, for his brother's goodness, was thought worthy to be quickly relieved by death, and his malice, was adjudged to the pain of apprehending it, and to the supplice of a long life. With good cause than may this be well reflected on, that the first virtuous and godly man was quickly removed out of this hedge of thorns his father had set, and reconveyed towards Paradise; and the first impious murderer, was sentenced to live in the pungencie and asperity of these pricks and briars of the earth. But yet such is God's Wisdom, as he can extract medicines out of all the Brambles & thistles our earth is overrun with, and minister them to our infirmity; for he applieth even those griefs and sorrows which sin introduced to the expulsion of sin itself. So as this is an operation, worthy of God's invention, by the labour and exercising of the body to enlarge the freedom of the soul, even by this unfortifying of her prison, in which she is kept the closer, the stronger the dolectation of our senses groweth upon us. Therefore the distancing of the conveniency of the flesh, dilateth the commodities and freedom of the spirit; so as it is a divine artifice, which God useth, by hanging weights of sufferings and pressures upon our senses, to wind up rather then to clo● our spirits, which are the motions, and resorts of the whole frame; and in probation of this experiment, David saith, 
Psal. 4.1. In tribulation thou hast enlarged me.  In tribulatione dilatasti me.  
And it is most observable, that God ministered this receipt (drawn out of thorns) to all those sons of Adam, whose minds he meant to purge, and clarify; For all the holy Patriarches, took this detersive potion of bitterness and affliction in this life; and it deserveth our attention, to note, how the nearer the time drew to the manifestation of the Son of God, (who was designed the man of sorrow) the passions of God's children grew the bitterer, and the sharper. For the Patriarches were exercised by divers mortifications, which were not capital, they stayed upon the distresses of their life: some of the Prophets as they approached to this fullness of the time of passion, tasted, by anticipation, of the cup of death, in which they were all but sigures of Christ's cup-beares, as Esay, Jeremy, Zachary, and others, and so those sufferings, which in time were the least distant from Christ (as those we find recorded in the Maccabees) came also the nearest to the horror, 
2 Mach. 7.  and acerbity of the passions of Christ and Christians, for they went not strait to death, but turned about, to take a compass of tortures, to make death bitter to those they could not make it terrible; as you may read in the execution of the mother, and her seven children; The very dawning of the day of passion, which was coming on, gave them this light of fortitude.  
It seemeth this weight of sufferance, and sorrow was all ways in so natural a motion upon the children of God, that it moved the faster, the nearer it came to the centre, The man of sorrow, who being the Son of God by nature, was the centre of all the sons by grace and adoption; and therefore all the bloody sacrifices of the law of nature, and ceremonial, tended and pointed to him, as their last term and direction; in order whereunto S. Paulinus sticketh not to say, that Christ from the beginning of all ages suffereth, and triumpheth in all the Church's persecutions; in Abel, he is killed by a brother; in Noah, he is derided by a son; in Abraham, he is a pilgrim; in Isaac, a victim; and in Jacob, a servant; in Joseph, he is sold; in Moses, left a derelict; in the Prophets, he is stoned, starved, and vilified; so as all the lines of holy passions, drawn from the circumference of all ages, tend, and resort to this centre of the man of sorrow, the Lamb of God, slain from the beginning of the World.  
These evidences may prove unto us clearly enough the first bond, or Covenant of sufferances, we are entered into as men; (and even in that notion we seem to be implicit Christians, since he who suffered sufficiently for all, maketh all virtuous affliction referrable to him;) It had been very easy for me to have exhibited a more precise manifest of this our first designation to sufferings, under the notion of men, there are so many excellent draughts of it stamped by the moralists, or naturalists of all ages; but I chose to deflect a little from the letter of the text, that I might make the inferences, rather strongly useful, then critically uniform; and therefore as I have already stepped beyond the out-court of the Gentiles, into part of the Temple, I will not call back to Philosophy, to borrow any demonstrations of this Principle, wherein the proofs are so accumulate, as all sects of Philosophers which differ so much, concerning the point of the good of man's life, concur in the confession of the multiplicity of the ills thereof. But I shall not, as I said, walk aside into the gardens, and flowery beds of the Gentiles, because I conceive it more proper for your state, to have some wholesome confection to take, than a nosegay of the flowers of Philosophy, to smell to only, in these unhealthful times; for the the large contemplation of miseries of human nature, is not a receipt direct, and expreffe enough, for your present exigencies, for that is but as it were a good air of meditation, that may be sufficient for such as are but in light ordinary indispositions of fortune, but your distempers require some more forceable application of comfort, by taking into your minds, the strongest obligations to patience, and longanimity. I will therefore pass on, 
Jab 14.22. His flesh while he lives shall have sorrow, & his soul shall mourn upon himself  to the other two assignments of suffering, which are upon you, as Christians, and as Catholics, and leave this our single humanity sealed with Jobs signature, Caro ejus, dum vivet, dolebit, & anima ejus super semetipso lugebit.   

CHAP. II. of the Covenant of suffering as Christians, the sons of Christ.  
What we have said of our first obligation, may well extenuate all we are bound to suffer by the second. For when we behold the infelicity of our condition, as we are men, we may well wonder more, that we were preferred to be Christians, then that we are continued to be sufferers. For sure, if God had consulted with Adam, after he saw his own nakedness, 
Mat. 8.8. Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof, but only say the word and I shall be healed.  and the annexure of all the miseries thereunto, whether he should have bowed the heavens, and have come down, to repair this his ruinous condition, by investing his miserable humane nature, he would have answered with the humble Centurion, Domine non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum, sed tantum dic verbo & sanabor, seeing he, who made all by one word could have redintegrated Adam, with a word, remaining in the simplicity of his divine nature, without the Word being made flesh; and being as it were, unmade himself (as the Apostle warrants us to say) by taking that flesh upon him, which was become, as it were, man's prison, so fare was it from being worthy to be the receptacle of God.  
When we consider then, how God chose this way of commiferating our nature, not to purge it, by his power, but even by the very infirmity thereof, by taking the passiblenesse of it upon him, we cannot deny, the suffering part to be the most beneficial property of it, since God made use of that only for the restauration of it; wherefore, the feeling that portion of humane nature upon us, which is the most ennobled by God's election, and preference, cannot rightly be accounted a prejudiced condition; whereupon we may conclude, that the blessing of being Christians, may easily reconcile us to the obligation of being sufferers; for what can be the reason why Christ, when by his pains he took away the sting of sin, would not also take off the points of sufferings in this life, which are but thorns of that plant, but because his passions had infused such a quality into our pains, as might produce this strange effect in our nature, to make our root the less capable of bearing fruit, by the excrescence, and growth of these springs out of it. For temporal affliction springeth cut of sin, as out of the root thereof, and nothing drieth up, and infecundateth so much the radical, fructifying vigour of this root, as the springing up of temporal miseries and distresses; so as the fruit of sin which is death, is killed the soon by the fertility of sufferings in this life.  
Since Christ hath then by the virtue of his Crown of thorns imparted this faculty to the asperities of our life, of taking off the growth, as his did the guilt of sin, we need not wonder, why he hath left all these temporal bitternesses upon our nature, which he himself took, expressly to taste of in our nature; so as we may be said to become the more Christians, the more we are called to be Patients. Which Position we shall find the more clearly demonstrated to us, the farther we advance into the Principles of Christianity.  
S. Paul, when he wrote to the Romans, in those times, when in a parallel of your cases, the Christians were partly immured up in prisons, and partly expelled to the adjoining fields, thought (it seemeth) to sweeten their condition to them, by representing, that Mortification and Sufferance was their calling and profession. For he asketh them, as of a notorious thing, Whether they knew not this to be the Constitution of Christianity, saying, 
Rom. 6.3. Are you ignorant that all we who are baptised in Christ Jesus in his death, we are baptised?  An ignoratis quicunque baptizati sumus in Christo Jesus, in morte ejus baptizati sumus? Intimating, that our first incorporation into the body of Christ, is in effect an expiration to this world, and a translation by the virtue of the death of Christ, into such a sort of life, as he had patterned to us, by the inception, progress, and consummation of his life. And the Apostle presseth thus the proof of this assertion, 
Rom. 6.4. For we are buried together with him in baptism into death.  Consepulti enim sumus cum illo per baptismum in mortem, to evince this position, that our mundanity is drowned and buried in our Christening, and that the life of Christ, which was a continued part of mortification, is to be (as it were) our breath and animation. And while we are in this spiritual manner buried in the life of Christ, that is, covered and enclosed with indignities & oppressions, we are acting that part we took upon us in Baptism, where we listed ourselves into that Militia, which was erected by him, who killed death by dying, and hath left the same Discipline to all his Soldiers, to destroy death by dying to the world; Mortifications therefore must needs be the proper duties of that service a Christian is upon, and his pay is conditioned rather upon his suffering, than his acting, as the Apostle proceedeth to testify, 
For if we become complanted to the similitude of his death, we shall be also of his resurrection.  Si enim complantati facti sumus similitudini mortis ejus, simul resurrectionis erimus; so as in a Christians case, the wages of death is life, for if he die here by a privation of the carnal life of this world, he performeth the condition of his life everlasting. For which reason S. Paul, who was the great Commander of the Gentiles in this militancy, (where by this kind of dying, death is swallowed up in victory) hath left us his Discipline in Quotidie morior, 
1 Cor. 15. I die daily.  and he giveth us those orders, to be the followers of him, as he was of Christ, whom he began not to follow until he was overthrown in the command he had in this world, & was (as it were) resuscitated by the same hand that had killed him. We may remember, he was revived by what is destructive to this life, by being almost famished, and illuminated by this world's darkness, & restored to corporal light, only to see how much he was to suffer for that name, for which all the sufferings he had in his head were to be employed, but in a manner fare differing from his design, for they were signed to be enjoyed by himself, not to be dispensed to others by his hand; so as this seemeth the gratification of his Christianity, the having all that treasure of crosses he had prepared for other Christians, appropriated to his own use, whereof he grew so sensible, as in gratitude to this his preference, he returned his Superabundo gaudio in omni tribulatione.  
But let us look upon his Master, 
I do exceedingly abound in joy in all our tribulation.  and ours, Christ Jesus, in his own time of tribulation, and we may represent him to ourselves, in the first instant of his conception, accepting this order from his Father, which he gave to his follower S. Paul, of Ostendam illi quanta oporteat eum pro nomine meopati, 
Act. 9.15. I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name before the Gentiles, and Kings, and the children of Israel.  ut portet nomen meum coram gentibus, & regibus, & filiis Israel. In which Commission he laboured three and thirty years, wherein, all we are acquainted with of his life, is either laborious, or incommodious, or in extremity dolorous and painful. It seems the holy Ghost did not think any thing worthy to stand upon record for CHRIST, that was not eminently suffering, and therefore passed over in silence those parts of his life, which we may suppose to have been the least distressful. If we look upon his way, that is drawn out to us from his Cradle to his Cross, we shall find, that temporal honour and ease were so inconsistent with God's design upon him, as he never had any proffers of them, that did not speedily procure him some sharper vexation. The Star that proclaimed him King at his birth, presently proved his proscription to death; and that the law of suffering might seem enacted in his first step into the world, it was put in execution upon innocent babes, whose blood, as S. Augustine saith, made the first tincture of Christian martyrdom, so that the cries of the mothers and the infants followed close the voices of the Angels that glorified him. When the people thought of making him King, it put him presently to fly alone into the mountains. When the evil spirits proclaimed him the Son of God, the Pharisees doubled their spies upon him to traduce him, and sharpened their wits to ensnare him, by captious questions. His entering into Jerusalem with the acclamations of Hosanna, hastened the persecutions of his enemies, and within few days the voices of the same Jerusalem, strained higher in the Pharisees air of Crucifige: whereby we may conclude, that he had so entirely assigned himself to sufferances, and passions in this life, as he did not think it a sufficient discharge, to accept the injuries of his maligners, without converting all the dutiful offices of his adherents into seed of affliction.  
This was the uneven and painful way wherein Christ chose to pass through this life, who is the way, the truth, and the life of Christians; and since one drop of his blood, had been a price sufficient for our redemption, shall not the effusion of it all, and the immensity of his griefs and labours be sufficient for our example? It being especially notified unto us by the Apostle, 
1 Pet. 2.23  That he suffered for us, to leave us an example, that we might follow his steps, wherein this print of sorrow seemeth unto me one of the most admirable marks of it, that he suffered not so much by his passion as by his compassion. He felt the torments of the Martyrs, the miseries of the Confessors, and the distresses and desolations of his Church, which he foresaw in all ages, more than the persons themselves who are under them can do. Vere labores, & dolores nostros ipse tulit, 
He truly bore all our labours and our griefs.  All the anxieties, and contristations that now oppress you, were in a sharper degree pressing upon his heart, and since he was content to aggravate all his sufferings by taking on him the sense of your grievances, may not you very easily alleviate all your heavinesses by taking into your mind the resentment of sufferings, which were designed for your succour in your tentations, by the reflection upon his precedent? so that his example, is not a simple injunction on you to suffer, but a conferment of an ability to sustain it, and a means to improve, and ameliorate your state in your coinheritance with him. For the Apostle enforceth this Doctrine with this energy of, 
2 Tim. 2.12 A faithful saying, for if we be dead with him, we shall live also together; if we sustain, we shall also reign together.  Fidelis sermo, si commortui sumus & convivemus, si sustinebimus & conregnabimus.  
This deserves well our contemplation, that the fullness of the Divinity did inhabit in Christ, and the clear vision of God did always illuminate him, notwithstanding this, it was so miraculously disposed by God, that the affluence of joy springing from the Deity, should not overflow his body, and possess the inferior portions of his soul, that there might be left room for pain and anguish; the which was manifest in his Passion, insomuch as stupendious miracles were requisite for an admittance of so much sorrow into his most sacred mind; if God were pleased thus to multiply miracles, that affliction might have access to his beloved Son, in whom he was so well pleased, shall we, with whom he hath so much cause to be displeased, wonder at any calamity, or tribulation whereby he is pleased to correct us, especially when it is a mark of our filiation, and fraternity with Christ? We who cannot be exempt from sufferings without a miracle, as we are sons of Adam, shall we be astonished at any imposition, under this notion of Brothers, nay even members of Christ? In which respect S. Bernard saith excellently, That delicate and tender members are not decent and becoming a head stuck full of thorns. Therefore the pressures and pungencies of this life, make the symmetry and proportion of the body of Christianity to the Head, Christ Jesus; who since he did not so much as speak one idle word, all his praises and beatifications of the poor and the afflicted must needs verify the good of adversity. 
Mat. 5.  And surely Christ did much less do any idle deed, and if the exemplary life of his labours and onerations had not been directed to our conformity therein, there might seem some supervacuousnesse and redundancy in his continual hardness and asperity of life. Would God have afflicted his only Son so, 
Rom. 8.  if it were indifferent to do, or not to do as he did? or that it did not concern those whom he had fore-known and predestinated to be conformable to the image of his Son, in this point, that he might be the firstborn of many Brethren? Our fraternity therefore is derived to us by this similitude. Our sins might have been effaced not only by a drop of Christ's blood, but even by a drop of his sweat; wherefore this seemeth one of the chief reasons that did induce the atrocity of his passion, and the austerity of his life, the necessity of such a pattern for our imitation, since our nature was grown so degenerous and effeminate, as no less than God's participation of all the sorts of grievances and injuries thereof would serve to form in us a cheerful disposition to the sufferings and infelicities of this life. God therefore did not intent to vex us, when he placed our salvation in difficulties, and in our nature's aversions, for to sweeten the bitterness of this strong necessity, which was to work upon our nature, to purge us from the love of this world, he was so gracious, as to infuse the company of Christ into this receipt, that the taste of his society might make more pleasant to us the ill savour and acerbity of the remedy. Well therefore may we say, A greater than Elisha is here, who hath mended these waters by but tasting of them, and hath left neither death nor barrenness in them, for they are become rather waters springing up to life everlasting.  
And we may observe, that in conformity to God's method with his Son, Christ continued the same style to his Mother, for she, whom all generations were to call Blessed, was not allowed any of what this world calls Blessings, for She, who had borne the Redeemer of the whole world, was not able to go to the highest rate of the Temple, for his Redemption, her poor estate did not reach to pay so much as a Lamb for the Son of God, and the Lamb who was to take away the sins of the world, had not so much as a Lamb for his ransom. The lowest price that was set for any of the Children of Israel, was the rate her low condition was taxed at. None was set at less than a pair of pigeons or a pair of turtles, and the Mother of God was in this inferior form of the daughters of men. This may serve to sweeten the bitterest waters of poverty. When we ponder this, that Christ would not allow his Mother to taste of any other spring; and though he would not let her taste of the sourness of the forbidden fruit, yet he fed her more than any other, with these bitter leaves which grew out of the same root, that is, though he was pleased to exempt her from sin, yet he would not dispense with her in sufferings, which we know are but the productions of sin; and so, she whom we may suppose to have been excepted out of the rule of sinners, was exalted above any in the state of sufferers. And this seems to be very consonant, that as she was Mother to the Man of sorrow, and of no sin, so she should be a bearer of all griefs, without any guiltiness. But howsoever this point is accorded by all parties, 
Luke 2.29, 35.  that being the purest of all creatures, she was nevertheless the greatest of all patients. When she came to redeem her own Redeemer by the legal ransom, and was to enter into possession of her Son, we may note, that the joys that were presaged her, by Simeon, in him were very dark and mystical, but her own sorrows very clear and manifest. For this mystery of her having a light to the revelation of the Gentiles in her arms, 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 easy to be conceived, of his being a mark of contradiction, and that a sword should pierce through her own soul.  
Nature itself evidenceth the miseries which mothers are liable to from children, and thus she had here her sorrows and her sufferings writ to her in the common Alphabet of nature, and her joys and consolations cyphered out only to her in the figures and characters of grace, which are so hard to be deciphered, though it may be she had the key of them. But howsoever, her faith was to be exercised by a tedious, and very sudden trial in affliction. She quickly found the sword in her soul, for we may easily conceive what a wound her sudden flight into Egypt was, how many fears, 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 soul 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 grief of being the occasion of them all upon her heart, so as the sword that was drawn directly against her soul, though the stroke did not light upon it, as it was aimed, yet it may be thought to have wounded her in a sharper manner, than 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 soul in so horrid a manner, as the pains 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 express, 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 Cross, 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 doleful figure of the Blessed Virgin, to give it a lively resemblance? I will therefore leave it veiled, with this reason upon it, Par nulla figura dolori; the not being pourtraictable, being the nearest 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 less apt to apprehend any extremity in our own; when she, who had at least not actual sin to expiate, had so much sorrow to exercise her virtue, how shall we (who have so much sin to satisfy for) wonder at any sufferings, whereof we have so much need to sanctify us? There is then no reason, why we should fear to be mistaken, in taking crosses for commodities, indignities for honours, poverty for treasure, since the eternal Wisdom, and divine understanding hath counselled this acceptation of them, not only by his advice, but by his Mother's precedent, and his own personal investure of them. He who is both the supreme goodness, 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 Father's 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 straight gate, is all the direction we find, either by his life, his doctrine, or his death. 
Mat. 11.12 The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, & the violent bear it away.  Regnum coelorum vim patitur, & violenti capiunt illud, is the word, or Matte belonging to the Arms of the Gospel; and as Christ said, No body ascendeth into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven; therefore he vouchsafed to come down, to live out this way, which he imprinted upon his sacred humanity. So that now, this way lieth so fairly marked out, by the prints of his steps in his return to his eternal mansion, as no body that looketh up to heaven can miss the seeing of it, though it be not the via lactea of the Poets, 
The milky 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, than the other is in the material sky. The life of Christ is such a sequence and connexion of bright and shining sufferings, as show our souls as intelligibly the way to heaven, as those stars do our eyes that sensible tract in the firmament. We may cast our eye upon this Galaxy, or constellation of humility, and depression in Christ's life, we shall see it illustrious and shining in an humiliation under all sorts of creatures. He humbled himself 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 food, as alms from the Angels, when he could have turned stones into bread. He humbled himself to man, and woman, remaining obedient to his Mother, and to Joseph. He subjected himself to Impious Princes, to Herod, Cesar, Caiphas, and Pilate by undergoing their burdens, and their judgements. He submitted himself to vile, and infamous servants, as to Malchus, and to his torturers, deriders, and others. He yielded himself even to inanimate creatures, suffering heat and cold to strike upon him, and by iron, wood, thorns, and reeds, he endured to be violated, and offended; nay he subjected himself to his greatest enemy the Devil himself, when he suffered him to carry him up to the pinnacle of the Temple; so there is no creature from the sublimest to the meanest, from the best to the worst, to whom Christ did not humiliate himself.  
And thus you see, this arch of humiliation set as it were on another bow, in the clouds of his humanity for a sign of this Covenant of sufferances, wherein I have suggested to you your engagement; and this bow of his Covenant, is so extended as it makes a perfect circle, it reacheth from the sphere of angelical, to that of inanimate substances, to both which we see, Christ did submit himself, and so his subjection toucheth the highest, and the lowest point of his own creatures. Which consideration of his ineffable humility must needs assure us, of that admirable effect it hath produced, of converting crosses into the nourishment of his body left upon earth, and so to bring that, which separated his soul, and his body, now to be the means of reuniting the body to the head. For the Cross is left in his Church, to conjoin and consociate the members unto their suffering head Christ Jesus; and we may well add, that this Divine sign of the Cross set in the Heaven of his Person so conspicuously, remains as a sensible mark of his promise to the Church, of never being drowned in any inundation of crosses falling on her.  
Looking up therefore to the heavenly object of Christ's sufferings, we may be comforted, by our similitude, and we may rejoice at our security, which this Covenant recapitulateth to us, as often as we contemplate it, insomuch as there is none of you, who groan under any pressure, or tremble under any oppression, 
Heb. 12.2.  that looking up upon the author, and finisher of our faith Christ Jesus, may not see him bearing the same cross with joy, despising the confusion of it. Whether you sweat under your burdens, or whether you bleed under the edge of these times, you shall find your persecution both civil and sanguinary patternd to you in the person even of God and Man, Christ Jesus, who hath not left so much as your fears, and terrors out of the exemplar of his passions; 
Mar. 14.33. He began to be heavy, and to fear.  his Caepit taedere, & pavere was designed purposely as a cordial in your fits of fainting; and if there were any point in your afflictions, which were not exemplifide to you in Christ's passions, that circumstance ought to prove to you, a sufficient consolation, in that you had some suffering to offer to Christ of your own, besides the copy, and pourtraicture of his. But alas, all that we can imagine in our own pains, wherein there is imitation of his, is that which we may better blush at, then boast of, for it is only the guilt of deserving more than we can endure in this life; this is simply ours in our afflictions, wherein we find no resemblance in the figure of Christ's sufferings, which part of our cases, may make us offer up to Christ a thankful alacrity in all temporal penalties inflicted on us, for having taken off from us, the burden we could not remove by any sufferings, and having left us only such pressures, as may alleviate the weight of that intolerable gravation, which is the guilt of sin: for our crosses in this life by the virtue of the Cross of Christ (whereof our heaviest are but chips, or shave) do not only keep our sins lower, but also weigh against the temporal penalty of those, which are in the scale.  
It may admit a question, whether it be a more precious Christian exercise, to do good, or to endure evils; That state is certainly the best in which both are conjoined, when suffering many grievances, we act as many good as we are able; yet God hath provided matter of meriting in both conditions severally: let them then who have nothing left to give to God, by way of actions, rejoice in the faculty of sorrows, which furnish them meritorious offerings in all their necessities. When King David extols the dignity of man, he raiseth it upon this ground, that God had made him but a little lower than Angels. 
Psal. 8.  But in this respect, we may say, that God hath advantaged him above them, by furnishing him with more instruments of meriting than they have, by having coupled a body to this spirit, in which he may suffer for Christ, when many other capacities of expressing, his gratitude are suspended. For man hath not only all the several powers of his mind, but also the senses of his body given him, as organs of meriting, by carrying the Cross upon them. With this corporeal furniture, man is enriched above Angels; so as man may even out of the greatest infirmities of his constitution, extract matter of glorification. This virtue hath been imparted to the vility of flesh and blood, since God vouchsafed to be invested in it, our flesh received this privilege not only of being admitted into heaven, but of contributing to the soul's degrees of glory, by the proportions of the bodies sufferings, and as S. Paul saith, 
Rom. 8.13.  It is no wonder that God, having given his own Son to human nature, should have given all these other prerogatives with him.  
Out of this state of our mortality, the Saints shall rise as high, as they should have done from the state of innocence & immortality, which shows, that they are equally sanctified in the brevity & shortness of their life now, to what they should have attained in many ages, if they had remained immortal. The multitude of sorrows and crosses, by the grace of Christ, countervaileth and compensateth the numerousness of the years of our service. Our Redeemer hath left this compendious way of meriting, by the necessities & molestations of our flesh, the which he would not expunge in it, that he might present his Father the children of his most precious passions, as much purified in a little time, as they should have been in the efflux of many ages. He who raised above the highest heaven, the heaviness of our earth upon this Engine of the Cross, hath left it us, to wind up the easilyer our terrestrial qualities upon the same machine. This was the means which S. Paul made use of, in all his elevations up to the third heaven: Christo confixus sum cruci, 
Gal. 2.20. With Christ I am nailed to the Cross.  carried him up to that sublimity; and he kept himself so close nailed to the Cross all his life, as when he was weak he was strongest, and never esteemed his raptures so much as his revile and ignominies. He professeth to glory willingly in nothing but in his humiliations, Libenter gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis, 
2 Cor. 12. Gladly will I glory in my infirmities, in contumelies, in necessities, in distresses for Christ, etc.  in contumeliis, in necessitatibus, in angustiis pro Christo, propter quod placeo mihi in infirmitatibus meis, in persecutionibus, because he found power was perfected in infirmity. Whereby we are convinced, that those who are called to Christianity, are assigned to all sorts of crucifying.  
All the iniquity of a Christian consisteth either in doing what Christ did not, or in refusing to do what he did, and none can excuse themselves, by an incapacity of imitating Christ in that, wherein he hath been pleased to state Christian profession; for every one may be poor, and patiented, and mortified, but every one is not qualified to attain to riches, honour, or learning. This is the wisdom and love of God, to have those things made the best contributions to our eternal felicity, which may not only be reached by every one, but can even scarce be miss by any, which are the afflictions and adversities of this life; wherefore those, who it may be would not have had the zeal to affect a similitude to Christ, in these hard touches of God's hand, must not be so ungrateful, as to repugn to this operation of God upon them, or be ashamed and confused to see this figure of deformity, in the world's eye, impresed upon them, in poverty, infamy, destitutions of friends, reproaches of enemies, and all other assimilations to Christ, but rather acknowledge a mercy of God, who having called them to these trials as Christians, whereunto they have answered but ill in other times, that now he vouchsafeth himself to place them in the society of the passions of Christ, remembering what the great Doctor in this world's miseries, and the others felicities, remonstrates to us, 
2 Cor. 1.7.  That in the same measure you are partakers of the passions, 
1 Pet. 4.1. Christ therefore having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with the same cogitation.  you shall be of the consolations of Christ.  
With good reason than I may urge this to you in S. Peter's name, Christo igitur passo in carne, & vos eadem cogitatione armemini. Which must not be only to suffer all patiently from your enemies, but even to be disposed to suffer for your enemies, if God's glory should propose it to you. O! shall not this lover of you, and benefactor of his enemies, be able to heap coals upon your hearts, to inflame them with a desire of this imitation? Put then, I beseech you, the sad heart of Jesus, as a signet upon your hearts, that he may find you according to his heart. You need not be disheartened to find your persons and estates become according to the hearts of your enemies, since you know, Tradidit eos in desideria cordis eorum, 
1. Rom. 24. God hath delivered them up into the desires of their own heart.  proveth often an unhappy prevalence, and you, looking upon all your deprivations and passiveness under the notion of Christians, have this lesson given you from that naked body on the Cross, whereof you are members, who did but pity those that were dividing his clothes, and casting lots for his upper garment, (which was a figure of his Church) and the action no ill figure of these times in the regard of casting lots; and Christ, when there was nothing left to extenuate their guiltiness but ignorance, pleaded that for them to his Father, in Dimitte illis, 
Luk. 23.34. Forgive them for they know not what they do.  non enim sciunt quid faciunt, and sought thus to cover their nakedness, who had so profanely exposed and violated his; and sure, Nesciunt quae faciunt, is a proper plea for your charity, to make now in defence of your afflictors; it is writ upon the face of most of their actions, and we may well use the Prophets Quis scit si convertatur, 
jonas. 3.9. Who knoweth if God will convert, and forgive.  & ignoscat Deus? Who knoweth whether God's mercy doth not design another work, then that which they think they set their hands to? and so they may be doing, they know not what, in the best sense we can understand it: 
S. Gregor. Moral. lib. 6. Ca 13.14.  for as S. Gregory saith pertinently to this purpose, God who is just and merciful in his disposure of humane actions, accordeth some things as he is gracious, and permitteth some as he is angry; and the things he doth but permit, he tolerateth them so, as he turneth them to the use of his counsel and purposes. Whereby it is effected, in a wonderful manner, that what is acted without God's will, is not done against it; for while ill deeds are converted to good uses, even those things bear arms for his design, that militate and repugn against it; and we may well say, not by way of Prediction, but of Prayer, Who knoweth whether the Spirit of God may not be pleased to move upon the face of those waters which now cover our land, and out of this abyss and Chaos, extract light and clarity. But as Saint Peter said, to consolate and confirm the Christians in their persecutions, you have a sure word of Prophecy to rest upon, 
Jo. 16.33.  in all your agitations, the eternal Word itself prophesying that his members should have all sorts of pressures and crosses in this world. To which you shall do best to attend, as unto a light shining in a dark place, 
Act. 15.15  till the day dawn again; and looking upon the verification of this Prophecy, 
To our Lord was his own work known from the beginning of the world. Luk. 9  in all ages we may rest upon S. Paul's ground, for the re-edifying of the tabernacle of David, and repairing the breaches thereof, and setting it up so, as the residue of men may seek after the lord Notum à seculo est Domino opue suum. Leaving therefore the knowledge of times and seasons to his providence, as the prerogative thereof, we must husband our properties of Christians, which is, to take up the cross daily, and to follow Christ. This is the inheritance of a Christian, the Passion of Christ, the which he may improve to himself, by the culture of Meditation, and must take heed of venturing to plough up the ground of God's Providence, and sowing it with his own Reason, that it may bear him satisfaction of the causes of his sufferings, or the Church's persecutions. For this is a labour he is forbid to sweat in, for which reason, this sweat of his brain shall not afford him bread. Our Father in this case only gives a stone to him that asketh him this bread, to feed his scruple, or his curiosity; whereas a Christian, by an humble acquiescence simply to God's inscrutable order and providence in all events, may turn even stones into bread, his afflictions into spiritual aliments, and draw oil out of the rocks he is cast upon: while he studieth not to solve God's riddles, the intricacies of his Providence, he shall have Sampsons' riddle explained, and applied to him, 
Judg. 4 4.  for Out of the eater shall come forth meat, and out of the strong shall issue sweetness. The Lion of the Tribe of Judah hath infused honey into the teeth of all these Lions he let's lose upon his Church, and a resigned patiented shall taste more the honey, than he shall feel the teeth of the beast that quartereth him. They therefore who will find the suavity of persecution, must suck it out of Christ's Passion, where it lies ready made, and not amuse themselves to work it out of the order of God's providence, wherein it rests implicated in the folds of many mysteries, and our curiosity in seeking it, will return us rather saul's anxiety upon his enquiry of samuel's ghost, than Sampsons' sweetness in the Lion's jaws, which he found when he looked not for it. And out of S. Paul's mouth, who was once a raging Lion, till he was killed by him, of whom Samson was a figure, we may take this honey to dulcify all those bitternesses of our lives, 
2 Cor. 4.18. Our tribulation which presently is momentany 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 seen and considered God's hand and manner in the figure of his dearly beloved Son upon the Cross, by which he conveyed him to his Coronation, let us now consider also Christ's 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 than 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 Wisdom itself, chose another method, as he told his dearest friends, Ego dispone vobis, sicut disposuit mihi Pater meus regnum. He copied his Father's hand upon himself, in his drawing and figuring his Church upon earth, 
Lu. 22.29. I dispose to you as my Father disposed to me a kingdom.  so as after his glorious body was enthroned at the right hand of God, he left his mystical body hanging as it were upon the cross in Calvary for some Ages, wounded by the lances of the Gentiles, and vilified by the scorns of the Jews. In this posture it hung, exposed many years a scandal 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 intolerable, as no body, that had not a God for the head of it, 
Mat. 27. My God, why hast thou forsaken me?  could have grown and prospered in so bleeding an infancy. It seemeth Gods unsearchable Wisdom, designed Christ's mystical body to be form on the face of the earth, as his natural body was in the womb of the Virgin, in the composition whereof, there was only the Spirit of God, working upon the pure blood of the Virgin, and in like manner, the virtue of the holy Ghost came upon the blood of the Martyrs, forming and animating the Primitive Church. For in those times we find the virtue of the Spirit working most upon blood, to form and procreate the body of the Church. And thus by the admirable virtue of Christ's Passion, it seemed not an effusion, but rather a transfusion of all the blood was drawn, conveying it into other veins, and the same spirits seemed to be carried 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 veins, which like channels rather than owners of it poured it out again so freely; and in this way of generation, the Saints and Martyrs procreated the descent of the family of Christ, for above three hundred years. The Apostles seemed to pour out their blood into the veins of their Disciples and Successors, and they in like manner to transfuse theirs into those descended 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 soul, the Apostle saith was then in the multitude of the Believers. And indeed, the records of those times may well make one reflect on the doctrine of Pythagor as, in his transmigration of souls; 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 faith there was a transmigration of the souls of the first Martyrs into the surviving issue of their spirit. Herod is said to have suspected, that the soul 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 virtues work in him.  Hic est Joannes Baptista, ipse surrexit à mortuis, ideo virtutes operantur in eo. The doctrine of transition of souls from one body to another was much followed in those times. But we may well in a pious and sober sense, say, that the soul of S. Peter seemed transmigrated into his successors for many years, 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 mould of earth upon that rock, whereupon the faith of the Roman Church did spring; the plants whereof, even all acknowledge their Churches to be, who have now severed themselves from that radical communion, and forgetting the benefits of those joseph's, who said them in the famine of their Faganisme, are now laying burdens 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 milk of it, by the which she hath nursed the succeeding times; for in all the Churches following persecutions the faithful 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 strengthened as well as alimented all their future progeny. It is an admirable evincement of the truth of Christian Religion, to remark, that as it was founded upon a supernatural conjunction of a body that might suffer, to a person that was impassable; 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 mouths, opened to speak out louder the mysteries of the Gospel, and to prove those verities by daring to die for them, which were not to be demonstrated by the eloquence of any living men or Angels; and thus the tongues of the Martyrs spoke more plainly the mysteries of their faith, when they were torn out of their mouths by their tortures, then while they were tutor their Disciples. Whereupon Tertullian saith to the Persecutors, Exquisitior quaeque iniquitas vestra, illecebra magis est sectae; the more exquisite their iniquity grew, the more efficacious allurement it proved to Christian Religion. For, as he explains it, every one being struck with wonder at the virtue and patience of the sufferers, began to think that worthy the enquiring into, which men thought so much better worth than their lives; and these reflections converted more than the best verbal expressions, to such auditors, as thought life not to be equivalenced by any compensation. Wherefore Saint Cyprian, who was one of the brightest mirrors of these reflections, saith, The Heathen were wont to conclude, that it deserved to be studied, and fully penetrated, that persuasion which could induce a man to suffer so much, and to die so willingly. And this Lecture of the bodies of the Martyrs, convinced more than the books of the Fathers; it wrought more upon flesh and blood, to see as it were the whole body set to their faith, than the single hand; as we saw in Malta, the Viper's teeth moved them more than S. Paul's tongue; and in like manner, this wrought those present effects frequently upon multitudes, the considering the minds of Christians, shaking off the stings of tortures, which hung upon their bodies, the peace of their souls remaining inviolated, and unoffended by them. And those admirable effects of such causes as were naturally opposite to them, were demonstrations of this dictate of Saint John, You are of God, 
1● Joh. 4.  and overcome the world, because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world, whereof he was one of the most egregious marks, being preserved for a spectator, after he had been himself a patiented in the scene of Martyrdom: for being condemned to suffer at Rome in a caldron of scalding oil, he came out of it more refreshed than the Emperor out of his baths of precious ointments; he rested in it, with little less case than he had done in the bosom of his Master. For Martyrdom may well be termed the bosom of Christ, as it is the nearest part of his body, joining to the suffering head upon the Cross, and as it is the nearest access towards a conjunction with the glorified head in heaven. And thus the Martyrs did daily verify this position, That he that was in them, was greater than the world; for they who had subdued the world, could not suppress Christianity. Christ chose to triumph over the tyranny & power of the Emperors of the world, before he would vouchsafe to be served by them, to evidence this for his glory, that it was not his necessity that required, but his grace that admitted Kings to be nursing-fathers', & Queens to be nursing-mothers' to his mystical body upon earth.  
This also deserveth our animadversion, that soon after the Church came to suck at those breasts, she fell into fits of Convulsion, interior Heresies, which endangered, her more than all the exterior wounds of Persecution she had received. Whereby appeareth, that the milk of Princes was not so healthful for her, as the blood of Martyrs. For even in Constantine the Great his time, who was the first Princely Foster-father of the Church, Arianisme began to breed in her, 
The denying the Divinity of Christ.  and this disease in his time, notwithstanding all his cures and remedies administered, lay still so nested in her, as presently after his death, the corruption broke out into desperate convulsions, and the very breast of her temporal nursing father, was cancered with this Heresy. For the second son of Constantine, named Constantius, to whom, in the partition of the Empire, the East was assigned, revolted professedly to Arianism, and in a few years this poison had so spread by his diffusion, as the leprosy had overrun almost all the Eastern Churches, insomuch as Christianity seemed more endangered by this canker in the breast of an Emperor professing to nurse it, than it had been by all those raging Lions that sought to devour it: So much more dangerous was it, to part Christ's Divinity from the Church, then to have the whole world united against her, while that was acknowledged, and relied upon for the support. This peril sprang out of Prosperity, when the Emperors of the East, seemed to think their Religion supported strongly enough without the Divinity of Christ, whereas Rome, which was then fallen away in all temporal diminution, maintained the entire profession of Christian faith, against all the gates of hell, which the Emperors under pretence of being watchmen upon the tower, had opened against her, and for many years, S. Peter's bark floated as it were in an Ocean of Arianisme, which had covered the Eastern, and had broke in upon many parts of the Western Empire. It were too long a work, to make a journal of the voyage of S. Peter's bark through all those ages, in which it hath been exposed to the storms of divers persecutions, and the sands of innumerable heresies it hath passed over with safety. That which respecteth most my purpose, is to clucidate to you, how temporal adversity, and tribulation have always contributed to the purity of the Doctrine and manners of the Catholic Church, for I do not mean to touch any Controversy, but in defence of those, you may unjustly account your adversaries, which are the crosses and afflictions of these times, and to dispute for the use, and benefit of them, against your diffidence, and irresolution, in this hour of your examination; which I hope, by the grace of God, may be effected in some degree by this suggestion to you, of those Covenants and obligations of suffering, wherein you are engaged, which I may urge to you in the terms of the mirror of sufferers S. Paul, 
1 Thes. 3.2  I have sent this to you, and exhort you for your faith that no man be moved in these tribulations, for yourselves know that we are appointed to this.  
Me thinks this should lenify, and disasperate all the sense of our afflictions, to reflect, how under these two notions of the Sons of Adam, and the Brothers of Christ, we are designed to sufferings. For as men, the holy spirit telleth us, 
Job 5.7.  Man is born to labour, and the bird to flight, insomuch as we should wonder no more at our troubles, then at our nature. Wherefore S. Gregory upon Jobs scraping his sores with a piece of a broken pot, saith, He made clean one dirt with another; for the holy man reflected from whence that was taken which he wore, and with a fragment of one piece of clay he scrapes another broken vessel, so as considering himself in that fragment of clay, in the cleansing and extersion of his sores, he did also dress and medicine his mind. And this is a ready refreshment, which we have always 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, seem more unnatural than resignation.  
And for the other Covenant as Christians, what can be more positive then S. Paul's exhorting distressed Christians not to be moved, 
2 Cor. 4.8. In all things we suffer tribulation, but are not in distress; always 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 copy, and manifest the life of Jesus; and we cannot render it so easy to be known by any way, as by having his most notorious marks 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 seek to finish this feature of Jesus, as exactly as we can, since in this respect we must be all Jesuits as well as Christians; and thus these times may conduce to the making you all Jesuits, according to this order of S. Paul. And if you enter piously into this society of Jesus, you will not fear 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 nuptial feast, in which your present nakedness shall pass for your Wedding garment, and from the bar of men you shallbe called up to the throne itself, where the Crucified sits to condemn all that appear not with that impression on them.  
This belief of a Christian's being pressed to serve under the Cross, 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 been entered by any tribulation, he had not begun to be a Christian; and Saint Martin was so imbued with this Doctrine, as when the Devil appeared to him in a glorious form, suggesting to him that it was an apparition of Christ, 
Christ doth not appear to his servants in this life, but on the Cross.  he answered, Christus non nisi in cruse 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 Christ's apparition to S. Peter, when he was stying out of Prison in Rome, by much persuasion 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 again: by which the Apostle understood his Master's order, and obeyed it cheer fully, returning back to the Prison, and soon after to the Cross, which was annexed to his Commission of Pasce oves meas, 
Feed my sheep. Fellow me  in this Schedule of Sequere me. So as Christ's bequeathements to his dearest friends upon earth, are but several crosses in the procession of this life, through our valley of tears. The hatred of the people, the malice of the Magistrates, imprisonments, and flagellations, were the only Legacies you know Christ left his Disciples, and in this he made them his heirs, first in this world, giving them all he died possessed of, so as the more you share in this his temporal estate, you are the truer heirs of this his Testament, which was writ in his martial hand, but signed and sealed by his eternal: 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 cheerful acceptance of these his affignements in this world. Whereupon S. Augustine adviseth us, not to consider what pain 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 expressly, 
Be glad, & rejoice, 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, four of them consist directly in suffering, and that those also that are somewhat referred to action, (which are the being merciful, 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 spiritual 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 souls having been strained through those pressures, as though this passing of it, were requisite to bring the heart to this cleanness, and depuration; and when we consider Christ's life, how he walked himself in this narrow way to this beatitude, we cannot reply against this order of following him through many tribulations into his Kingdom, for if Christ suffered so much that he might justly give us his glory, what ought not we to do 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 himself telleth us, 
Joh 5.23, 27.  That the Father hath given all judgement to the Son, and produceth this as the reason, Because he is the Son of man, that is, for having merited it by the labours and passions of this humane life; and S. Paul explaineth this clearly, where he saith, 
Ph l. 27.  Christ humbled himself made obedient to death, even the death of the cross, for the which thing God hath exalted him. So that here Christ's power is referred to his purchase of it by his passions. Therefore a Christian that repineth at any affliction in this life, seemeth to forget what he oweth the Cross for his redemption from misery, and to what he was sealed by it, when it was laid upon him in water, to engage him even before he could bear it in a heavyer matter, and to oblige him to serve under all those crosses of fire or water this life should pass through, for after this comes a stronger baptism of fire in the trials of a Christian.  
Those who are not Christened with the sign of the Cross, may have some pretence, not to understand the use or obligations of it; but you, on whose heads it hath been laid in Baptism, and pressed (as it were) into them by Confirmation, can have no colour to mis-conceive the use of Crosses; and since it is a defence against evil spirits, the making but the sign, or figure of the Cross, with our hand, it must needs be of greater efficacy against both the world and the devil, the having of them made upon us by the hand of God, who chastiseth every child he receives, and so crosseth his children always either to expel some evil spirit, or to mark a lodging for the better reception of his holy mission into it. 
In this sign thou shalt overcome.  Look up therefore to heaven, and you shall see In hoc signo vinces engraven upon all your Crosses.  
I will close up this proof of your second covenant as Christians, with this advice to you, how in all the shipwrecks of your lives or fortunes in this storm, you may save yourselves by a right use of the Cross. The Fathers do usually call the Cross, Tabulam naufragii, that plank whereon humane nature was saved, when all her goods were cast away, and you must take the manner of saving yourselves by your crosses, from that conception of making them planks to bear you up; and you know the same piece of wood, lying upon you, will sink you, which would carry you if you lay upon it. In like manner, if the weight of your present crosses lie upon the sensitive part of your souls, and you consider them merely as sensible oppressions and gravations in this world, flesh and blood will be dejected, and sunk by them; when that feeleth all the charge upon it, the mind may easily be cast down by the heaviness of the senses; but if you lay your minds upon your crosses, that is, extend your thoughts orderly upon the meditation of the Cross of Christ, from which all yours derive a virtue and efficacy to work upon you, the image of the Son of God, laying your minds in this posture upon your crosses, they will bear up your hearts instead of sinking them; and thus this storm shall but drown your worldly and earthly affections, and your crosses in this posture under your minds, shall carry and land you in the land of the living. Wherefore I beseech you to cast your thoughts in this posture upon the Cross of Christ, 
2 Cor. 13. For although he was crucified of infirmity, yet he liveth by the power of God, for we also are weak in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God.  resting upon it with confidence, that it will support you; and rest your minds upon your own crosses, as conceiving them to be rather carriages of your souls to spiritual aspire, then material onerations upon your bodies, and then you may easily apply to yourselves this comfort of S. Paul out of the crucifixion of Christ, Nam etsicrucifixus ex infirmitate, sed vivit ex virtute Dei, nam & nos infirmi sumus in illo, sed vivemus cum eo ex virtute Dei.   

CHAP. III. Of the Covenant of suffering as Catholics, the Champions or true Church of Christ.  
IN my preceding discourse, having (I hope in God) sufficiently proved this your second bond of sufferance by the two irrecusable witnesses of Christ's life, and his death, I shall proceed to put the third in suit against any reluctant and querulous humour which flesh and blood may breed in you to plead against your spiritual conformity to your temporal condition; that in poverty of spirit you may be suited to the penury of your fortunes, when you consider seriously yourselves bound by this triple cord to crosses & adversities in this life. The third of your Covenants I proposed to you, was, the being Catholics, which notion seemeth to be like the wheel in the middle of a wheel in Ezekiel's Vision, for the Catholic Church is contained within the greater circle of Christianity as a lesser sphere within a larger: and we may properly say that the spirit of life is in this smaller wheel; for the being a Christian in the large acception of it, will admit many stations of Religions, without the enclosure of the Catholic Church, wherein the Symbol of the Apostles incircleth the true Christian Faith; and because this term, Catholic, is now the notional distinction of your true Religion, from all other, whose sects are comprehended in the amplitude of the term (Christian) it will not be impertinent to explain unto you in a few words the Church's sense of this denomination, Catholic.  
We know the first followers of Christ, were called Disciples; It seemeth Christ's humility would not admit so much honour in his life, as the faming of his name by this celebration of it, which men affect especially to set upon the front of their intellectual edifices: for Christ all his life endured the meanness of his earthly habitation to be branded upon his Disciples who were called Nazareans, or Galileans, rather than the gloriousness of his office to be charactered upon them. For his surname of Christ, which is Anointed, hath a reference to the highest dignities of the world; so as it was long after his death, before he admitted his followers to that honourable name of Christians, for you know it was at Antioch that the Disciples began first to be named Christians, and he who never sleepeth, was early up sowing tares, for Simon Magus, 
Act. 11.26  who was his first seedsman, sowed even in the same furrows the Apostles were ploughing, and his followers wore the badge of his name, and many other Heresies sprang presently up, all which covered themselves with this large cloak of Christian; in so much as the name of Christian was justly odious in that apprehension the Gentiles had of it. For the Heresies that were clothed with that upper garment, were in their own nakedness, foul and execrable in all sorts of pollutions. For those we call now Simoneans, and Gnostics, and Ebionites, and many other, which by the Authors of their Sects are now stigmatised, in those times were all involved in the latitude of Christians. Whereupon before the death of all the Apostles, this denomination of Catholic was peculiarly affected to the sincere and orthodox Christians, which surname we take from our Mother the Catholic Church, notified so for the single, and only Church of Christ by the Apostles Creed; and in the sequence of ages, as the tares grew up in the large field of Christianity, the pure and sound part of the Church assigned this as a special and specifical difference between the Heretics and the legitimate Christians, and so it hath been accepted ever since as a notional discernment between them.  
The word, Catholic, signifieth literally, Universal, and was meant to signify that faith to be only sincerely Christian, which was universally and unanimously promulgated by the Apostles, and conserved by the general conseat and fidelities of their disciples, and so transmitted by all the concurrent testimonies of that age to the next succeeding it. So as the Church is not called Catholic for the actual extension of it into all nations, but as the major part in respect of all Christian societies, or in reference to the promise of this expansion over the whole world. So that it hath always been one of the visible marks of the Church, the being the greatest society of Christians of any one communion. And as all sects came out of the true Church she retaineth still the name of the whole, as the body of the tree doth after many branches are torn off from it. So as the Catholic Church neither is, nor ever was a comprehender of all the sects of Christians, but a compriser of a greater portion of them, than any other profession which was separate from her; and this majority the Catholic Church hath had in all Christian ages. When we say then the Roman Catholic Church, we do not mean to exclude all Churches from being Catholic besides the local Church of Rome, but as that is the head, and spring of Catholic communion, by way of dignity and preference above all other particular Churches, we give Rome that single appellation, as the head of all other Churches, or by reason of the derivation of the Catholic faith from her to the rest of the Churches of the world, as being the Chair of S. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, who was constituted head of the Universal Church, and as the same authority and prerogative is descended upon his successors the Bishops of Rome, in these respects, in regard no Church is accounted, nor is Catholic, that doth not adhere to her communion, we style the particular Roman, the Catholic Church.  
For if we speak formally and expressly, the Catholic Church signifies the body of all particular Churches united in communion with the Universal, and by way of participation any particular Church may be called Catholic as it partakes with the entire body. In this respect the Church of England before the separation was a Catholic Church, and so are all Churches which remain united to the Catholic Communion. So as when you hear it objected that Roman and Catholic seem as incompatible as particular and Universal, you may satisfy yourselves, that Rome doth not claim the title in that contradictory sense, to say that the single and local Church of Rome is the Universal Church, but that Rome is the head of the Universal Church, in which all particular ones are to be accounted Catholic (in this sense of orthodox, and true Churches) as they are united to that head. If the Protestants acknowledged any one particular Church to be the head of their communion, that Church might be said to be the Universal Protestant Church by way of eminency; and in this sense the Roman Church is styled the Universal or Catholic Church. I have said this as falling within the verge of the word Catholic, without intending to pass further than the frontispiece of the Church to read to you this inscription only of Catholic, which is often misunderstood by those who will allow Universal Religion, but no Catholic.  
And, I hope, the signification of this your surname may minister great assurance to you, when you consider that you suffer under that title and notion, which hath always been the discernment of true Christian Religion. For S. Irenaeus (one of the Primitive Fathers of the Church) marketh, that none of the sects of those ages did ever arogat this title of Catholics. 
Psal. 90. With a shield his truth shall encompass thee, a thousand shall fall on thy side, & ten thousand on thy right-hand, but to thee it shall not approach.  It seems it hath been preserved miraculously among the insolences of all various errors, which never durst lay violent hands upon this lovely intemerat virgin name of Catholic; the protection of the Psalmist hath been verifide upon this name, Scuto circumdabit te veritas, & cadent à latere tuo mille, & decem mille à dextris tuis, ad te autem non appropinquabit, for of all the swarms of wasps and hornets which have flown out of the Church in all ages, never any did so much as taint this name by their hiving themselves in it. There hath always descended upon the projectors of Babel this design of, 
Let us make to ourselves a name.  Faciamus nobis nomen; they have always affected the celebration of their own name, that have set up for themselves any new sect, and their master hath paid them that vanity, for labouring in his high way, to allow the stamp of their own names to be set upon the coin, whereof he is the Prince, and the Father. This privilege the devil hath allowed to all Arch-heretics, and hath communicated so much of his prerogative as to leave their names impressed as a signature upon their errors; but none have been permitted to vitiate the name of Catholic by an imposition thereof upon any sophisticated Religion.  
It is not my work now to exhibit to you the proofs of the legitimate genealogy of your Religion from the true ancient Catholic stock, I believe these very times may read to you the evidences of your antiquity by the aversion which all novelty declares against it, I purpose only to convince the controversies of humane nature in the point of sufferings, not to handle any contention in matter of faith, believing you have more need of help against the fingers of Pursivants, then against the arms of Pulpits, and this reflection may serve you to confute the arguments of your flesh and blood against patience in all your persecutions, in that you suffer under that notion which only can sanctify the sufferings of any persecuted Christians. Conclude then yourselves happy in these times, since you are in a capacity of making treasure of all your tribulations, when others, who it may be are under as heavy a temporal yoke as you, drawing not in the same carriage of the Catholic faith, will find the weight, even in this world, more intolerable.  
They are much more to be lamented to whom we cannot apply S. john's comfort to the distressed Catholics of his days, when he saith, 
Apoc. 1.9. I your brother, and partaker in tribulation, and the kingdom, and patience in Jesus Christ.  Ego frater vester, & particeps in tribulatione, & in regno, & patientiâ in JESUS CHRISTO. For it is a deplorable sight to see our kindred, and friends out of that state, which (as S. Paul saith) Operatur tolerantiam earundem passionum quas & nos patimur. 
2 Cor. 1.6. Which worketh the toleration of the same passions which we also suffer.  For which cause one of our greatest prayers ought to be, that as they are partakers of the passion, so they may be also of the consolations; for Saint Austin saith, One may carry all things with him out of the Catholic Church but charity, as baptism, the sacraments, and the resolution of suffering. But we know how little comfort S. Paul giveth to those who have all the material parts of Christianity, and want the formal, and animating spirit thereof which is Charity. 
1 Cor. 13.  How much then ought you to praise God in all your Covenants of sufferings, to see yourselves comprised in the infallible Covenant and contract of reward which is passed to his Catholic Church; 
Rejoice & be exceeding glad.  wherefore I may properly say to you, Gaudete & exultate, because you are under the best notion of the afflicted in these times, when sufferings are so universal, and the cause of them so little Catholic.  
Upon those words of the Apostle S. Paul, 
Col. l. 24. I accomplish those things that want of the passions of Christ in my flesh, for his body which is the Church  Adimpleoea quae desunt passionum Christi in carne meâ pro corpore ejus quod est Ecclesia, S. Augustine asketh how there can any thing be said to be wanting to his passions who was God and Man, and taking vinegar for his last taste of this world, declared giving up the Ghost that all things were consummate that had been written of him; and answereth the question thus, that all the passions were completed that belonged to the head, there remained the sufferings of the body, which is the Church, to render it suitable to the head, and the Apostle as a principal member of that body might well say he was to fill up his share of what was required thereof. So as it is not the insufficiency of Christ's passions that needs a supplement of his Church's pressures, but the order of God, who hath designed the application of Christ's passions and merits to his Church by this her conformity to his passive peregrination through this world.  
And may we not say, that to unite his Church the more firmly to him, he hath left her fastened to the Cross upon earth, that this his body might seem to be so much his own, as it might appear rather his natural body crucified, then only a mystical signification thereof? For his passions being continually iterated upon real flesh and blood, which have the honour to be called the Temples of the holy Ghost, they may seem to have a more than ordinary representation of the passive body of Christ. For if all the sacrificed bodies of the Synagogue, and all the blood of irrational creatures effused in the Temple, were figures of his natural body, why may not those sacrificed bodies which are themselves Temples of God, well be said now to be an admirable manner of somewhat more than representing Christ's living body? Therefore it seemeth that Christ, to have a continual view of the glory of his suffering body, hath lest his Church in a bleeding posture, to present God his Father with a perpetual show not only of a picture, or image, but as it were a real exhibition of himself suffering in his Church; and no sight propitiateth God to the sons of men so much, as this of seeing them as it were acting the sons of God, under this notion of hosts and sacrifices. In the quotidian unbloody sacrifice of his now impassable body, the offering is of more dignity, but the object seemeth not so affecting, and moving compassion, as the torn and wounded figure of his Church's tribulations, the body whereof seemeth to be designed to bleed continually for a lively memorial of Christ's merits in the sight of God, and for a solicitor of an effusion of fresh graces, upon the necessities of this body, until the bleeding and the beatifyed body be both united into one conformity of glory.  
This is the order God seems to have settled in the continuation of his Church's sufferings, the which attract succours convenient at the same time, that it may remain a perfect image of Christ's body, always grieving, and always glorying, in a compliance with the design of God, and in the proclamation of the triumph of Christ, who when he led captivity captive, gave these gifts unto men, whom he left to triumph by the same Arms wherewith he had overcome, which are Crosses, Sufferances, and Passions. Which consideration may easily induce us to acquiesce to the order of the sufferances of the Catholic Church, since the pressures thereof are not only continued memories or imitations of that object which is so pleasing to God, the passions of Christ, but even accomplishments of what was wanting of his passions, (according to the meaning of S. Paul before related) which was the finishing and consummating the effect of his sufferings, by rendering the body so fit for the head, as Christ may have glory by the perfection of this work, as well as the Church beatitude by this suitable incorporation.  
Since S. Paul saith, 
Heb. 2.10.  That it became God to consummate the Author of our salvation by his passion, we must needs conclude it necessary, that we who are to be the matter which is to be saved, and glorified, should be purged and perfected by the same manner; and we may well say, that to answer to the single bloody sacrifice of such a head, the perpetual sanguinary immolation of the body, during to the end of the world, is but a decent conformity. With good reason therefore, as the head of the Catholic Church was once victimated and offered up in blood to the glory of his head, 
a 1. Cor. 11.4.  who is God, it is but just that the body should be continually immolated, as a bleeding host to the glory of his head, who is Christ. Whereupon Saint Paul expressing the proper state of the Church, 
2. Cor. 4.11.  saith, We that live are always delivered unto death for JESUS, that the life of JESUS may be manifested in our mortal flesh; so as the Church seems appointed a durable sacrifice to manifest and set forth the life of Christ to his Father and himself. And upon this ground, the Church may be said to be in some degree to Christ, what he is to his Father, that is, as he is the mirror which reflects to the Father his eternal life and being, so the Church in her passions reflecteth to Christ his own mortal life and existence. Which figure of Christ upon earth, when the Father contemplateth, 
Heb. 1.3.  and at the same time seethe him to be the brightness of his glory, and the figure of his own substance, this must needs propitiate God infinitely to that body, which representeth to him such an honour he hath received from the head thereof, who being equal with him, did thus admirably subject himself for the exaltation of his glory. Doth not then the suffering Church rememorate to God continually the highest point of all his glory? For the holocausting or incineration of infinite worlds, in honour of the Majesty of God, would not have been an oblation equivalent to the least drop of blood drawn from the person of Christ; and therefore Christ's design in leaving his mystical body in a suffering posture, is one of the highest strains of his divine providence, both in order to the honouring of his Father, 
Ephes. 4.13.  and the purifying of his Church, till The body and the head meet in the perfect man, in the age of the fullness of Christ.  
It than we review the state of the Church, even since the Empire of the world undertook her protection and repose, we shall find her still continuing an image of the life of Christ, who we know had divers intermixtures in his course through this world; sometimes he was in want and hunger in the desert; sometimes declared in the glory of his miracles, feeding multitudes, and curing all diseases; and again, sometimes we find him withdrawing and hiding himself from the fury of the people; and then at other times we behold him in authority and magistracy, expelling the prophaners of the Temple, and casting out the evil spirits out of the images of God, and converting them into the temples of the Holy Ghost. These vicissitudes we find also in the state of his Church, sometimes prospering, spreading, and feeding those multitudes which suddenly after have risen against her, and forced many of her members to fly out of their reach into deserts and more dispeopled places; in some times again she hath propagated miraculously, and established her doctrine and her jurisdiction among many unbelieving nations in a wonderful felicity, and in sequence of time hath been banished and eliminated out of these dominions. These alternative mutations are evident in the progress of her dispersion through the world, and we know she shall extend herself at last to the ends of the world, and if not cover the face, yet leave some of her marks upon the whole face of the earth. We see her now as it were shipped away almost quite from Africa, where she was so firmly planted many ages before America was so much as known to be in the world, and now she spreads there to a good growth, while her plantation in Africa lies waste and desolate, and the good seed which is fall'n in that ground seemeth to answer for the semination of those tares which the Enemy hath cast into these territories of Christianity. And we may note, that all the ancient heresies which so much infested the Church in former ages, are now almost eradicated according to the fate of them. 
Sap. 4.3.  Spuria vitulamina non dabunt radices altas, and the new ones which are now so flowerd, and full blown, will shed and fall away, like Tulips, which commonly vary their colours every year somewhat, till the root itself in a few years leaveth bearing; and these varieties of vexations will successively spring up to the Church; out of the ruins of some errors, new willbe erected; and thus she shall be exercised to the end of the world, till the man of sin, Antichrist, shall come to purge her by a general conflagration, as it were of the whole world in the flames of his blasphemy, which shallbe the last perfecting fire of tribulation, shall reduce the Church to the fineness of that gold which must pave the heavenly Jerusalem.  
This is Christ's method and designation of the manner of his Church's passage through this world up to him, in whom since there can be neither impotency nor severity to this his body, for the Apostle tells us, 
Ephe. 5.29.  He nourisheth and cherisheth it as a man doth his own flesh, we must resolve that this order is in reference to the presenting his Father with a continual intuition of his suffering body, whereby he is the most eminently honoured, 
Ephe. 5.27. Not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it may be holy, and unspotted.  and to refine this body to the most perfect degree of purity, which this local separation from the head can admit of, to reduce it at last to that glorious estate, Non habentem maculam, aut rugam, aut aliquid hujusmodi, sed ut sit sancta, & immaculata. Wherefore I may properly say to you as members of this suffering body, 
1. Pet. 4.12.  from S. Peter's mouth, Think it not strange in the fervour which is to you for tentation, as though some new thing happened unto you, for all that you are exposed to is in consequence of that order wherein Christ conducts his Church through this transitory world.  
TO clucidate farther this position, That God is propitiated by the sight of Christ's suffering body, we may make this animadversion upon the constitution of the Catholic Church, That soon after the issue of blood was stenched, so as the bodies of the Martyrs did no longer afford that object of passions, the Holy Ghost (who had charge to preserve the Church in the most acceptable condition to God) presently infused a spirit of voluntary mortifications and sufferings into the Church, whereby many holy persons were divinely inspired to congregate bodies and societies of sufferers, which should be united by a vow of perpetual afflicting and exercising their bodies, and making themselves lively images of Jesus Christ crucified by the rules of selfe-abnegation, and exhibition of a life entirely sacrificed in the toleration of all sorts of austerities. This spirit wrought upon both sexes, and hath produced those admirable orders of mortified, and crucified Christians, which are so eminent in the Catholic Church; so that the strongest powers of flesh and blood have been subdued by the weakest portions of it; Virgins in the succeeding times have been as sanctified by their civil death, and spiritual mortification, as they were by the violent destruction of their lives, & consecration of their bodies in martyrdom, to this ministry of the Church's sufferings, which were wanting to the passions of Christ; and so this order of selfe-sacrificing, seemeth to have succeeded in the Church, to the vacancy of the Martyrs, whereby God hath this spectacle continued to him, in the passions of the body of Christ, in bodies and societies expressly set apart from the world for that intendment, which are all the religious orders of the Catholic Church, whose lives are nailed to the Cross by many vows of austerity, penance, and self-crucifixion; and these make such a propitiating sacrifice of their lives to God, as we may be assured he smells it as an odour of sweetness, since he breatheth down such a suavity and savour upon all their most asperous regularities, which are of so ill an odour to nature, as the holy Spirit must needs incense and perfume them to make them tolerable. And surely the purity of these living hosts doth mediate powerfully for God's patience and longanimity, which he affordeth to many multitudes of such members of Christ's body, as do rather crucify again to themselves the Son of God, as the Apostle saith, 
Heb. 6.6.  then exhibit themselves images of Christ crucified.  
And thus Christ is so infinitely merciful, as he suspendeth the justice of his Father against those, in whom he still seems to suffer, by presenting to him that part of his Church, which suffereth in him, whereby God hath still various remonstrances set before his eyes of the passions of Christ, to ingratiate his Church to him in these later ages, wherein God hath been pleased to take the sweet savour of his Church, more from the Altar of odours and incense within the veil of the Sanctuary, then from that of bloody sacrifices; that is, from the consecration of the religious orders of his Church, which do as it were evaporate their lives in a continual fume of self-consumption, by the fire of mortification. In this estate the Church may say, 
Psal. 39 Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not, but ears thou hast perfected to me.  Sacrificium & oblationem noluisti, aures autem perficisti mihi: For God hath been pleased to perfect the ears of his Church, in the attention to his Evangelicall counsels of chastity, and relinquishment of all to take up the Cross. And this is remarkable for evincement of the single legitimation of the Catholic Church, that no other communion of Christians have their ears so much as opened to the counsels of Christ.  
It is strange, that they who have their ears open to nothing but the letter of the Word, should be so deal to those so literal words as recommend these Evangelicall counsels; 
1 Cor. 1.18 The word of the Cross.  but as it is Verbum Crucis, we may fear it seemeth stultitia to them; but to the Catholic Church, 
The power of God.  it is Virtus Dei. For sure it must be a singular operation of the Spirit of God, to dispose the corruption of our flesh and blood to vow itself to such a lasting martyrdom, in which, as out of an ingot, or wedge of gold, the Wire is hammered, and drawn out by continual macerations and percussions upon the flesh; and as the matter may be said to endure more by being wrought and drawn out into small Wires, then when a piece of gold is stamped and coined at one blow upon it; so those bodies which are extenuated, and filled away by lingering mortifications, and macerating austerities, may be truly said to have a more painful kind of Martyrdom, while they are thus wrought as it were into the image of Christ, than those who have it marked & impresed upon their bodies all at one incision; which is the case of Martyrs, that at one blow have Christ stamped upon them; the others are long under the Press, whilst (as the Apostle saith) Christ is form in them. 
Gal. 4.19.  And these are such as according to the advice of Saint Paul, do exhibit their bodies a living host, holy and pleasing to God, (which he calls A reasonable service) to wit, a spiritual and rational offering of soul and body, by internal purity, accompanied with extinction as it were of the life of the flesh, by vigilancy, abstinence, and attention to divine offices.  
And surely there are many of these unbloody sacrifices, which are no less acceptable to God, than the victims of the Martyrs. For certainly it is a harder work to keep our blood continually from running the course of nature in our veins, than it is at once to pour it out of them. The first is a continual combat, and an uncertain victory, for the enemy who is overcome every day, is still equally to be feared. The last though it be a sharper conflict, yet it is a present dispatch, and a perpetual extinction of all enmity. Wherefore S. Chrysostom saith, He admireth more Joseph remaining unscorched in the flames of such a solicitation, than the three children coming with no scent of fire out of the furnace; and S. Bernard saith, he accounts a chaste soul not only to be celestial by origin, but even heaven itself by similitude. And thus Christ who hath carried our nature into heaven above that of Angels, hath left it a capacity even on earth to become Angelical. So we may say now that Christ in his Catholic Church presenteth his Father with Crucified Angels, to represent to him his passion, for the Virgins who crucify their flesh with all the vices, and concupiscences of it, may well be said to be Angelical Crucifixes. And thus the wisdom of the Holy Ghost, hath as it were varied the manner of Martyrs in the Church, and subrogated crucified lives to officiate in the place of the sanguinary victims of the Primitive ages, to make the same representation. Whereupon, as Christ did leave the unbloody sacrifice of himself, to commemorat, and apply the virtue of his passion, so it seemeth the unbloody obligations of the religious bodies of his Church, were instituted by the Holy Ghost to continue that part, which was acted in the victims of the Martyrs, which was a representation of the passions of Christ to God the Father, whereby a continual influence of fresh graces is impetrated for the support of the Catholic Church in all her pressures; 
Eph 5.32. This is a great Sacrament in Christ. and in his Church.  so as we may say with the Apostle, Sacramentum hoc magnum est in Christo, & in Ecclesiâ.  
All this tendeth to illustrate to you, how the Church is designed by her head Christ Jesus to remain a suffering body in this world, to the end, you who by Christ's great mercies are members of it, may not be tempted by the infirmity of nature to reply with Gedeon to the Angels of the Church, 
Judg. 6.13.  If our Lord be with us, why have those evils apprehended us? but rather in an holy assurance that God cannot be removed from us but by our own diffidences, let us answer with Eli to the message of ruin to our houses, 
1 Reg. 3.18  It is our Lord, let him do what is good in his eyes.  
It is observable, how to that Church of God, to which no temporal sufferings were medicinally appointed, there was no reward but temporal felicity manifestly proposed: for as all the sacrifices of the temple were but figures of the blood of the Church of Christ, so all their promises were but dark shadows of heaven, the which is as much clearer, and better exposed to us, as the sufferings of men are worthier than those of beasts; and it was but just, that they who had but water appointed for most of their purgations, instead of the fire of Christian discipline, and mortification, should have but earth measured out to them for their possessions, when the others who had all sorts of afflictions prescribed to them, had heaven fairly laid open to their expectations. And so there is more difference between the joys, & glories that are proposed to Christians, in the sight of God, and the tasting the grapes and figs of Canaan, conditioned with the children of Israel, then there is between the being but aspersed with blood from the hand of a Priest, and the being ourselves the bloody sacrifices.  
All our sufferings are then compensated by that measure of joy, running over into our bosoms, which is a promise of becoming Gods, while the acquisitions proposed to our elder brothers, were but the prosperities of men. Wherefore we may note, that until the Cross had opened the gates of heaven, God did not make that, the key, wherewith his children were so precisely ordained to unlock them. For the ancient Patriarches who were to stay long without the doors were not set to forge this key out of the fire of tribulation, with so much sweat and labour, as those who were presently to be let in upon the perfecting of their work prescribed in the Gospel. And so we may observe a far differing order in the promulgation of the Law, and of the Gospel. For to the Generals of the Law, there was given a promise of great temporal victories, triumphs, and subjugations of their enemies, but we know the Champions of the Gospel had very different Commissions, which consisted in all temporal sufferings, defeatures and distresses. These were the articles which Christ penned for their instructions, That they should fly before their enemies from place to place, be taken, scorned, scourged & vilified under all worldly indignities; 
In the world you shall have distress. John 16.33.  In mundo pressuran habebitis, is one of the last orders Christ gives his Commanders, so that we may see S. Peter, and S. Paul, diversely equipaged for their expeditions to what Moses and Josuah were for their enterprises. And yet the conquest of the first, was to extend to the whole earth, and the victories of the last but to a molehill in respect of the other. So much more virtue Christ's person hath conferred upon crosses and sufferings, than God did allow to temporal prosperity.  
Upon this foundation, Christ, to raise this point of afflictions which is annexed to his Church, as high as nature can carry it, exalts it by a revolt of nature itself against all innate inclinations, advertising his Church, that even their fathers, brothers, & friends, shall deliver them up to persecutions. And I pray God you have the next following mark of the Disciples of Christ as evidently upon you as you have these, which is, 
Luk 21.17, 19  In your patience you shall possess your souls. This is the only shield Christ hath given his Church to cover her in all those showers of fiery darts which are to fall upon her. He hath left her patience, and permitted the world to furnish her with passions, as necessaries for the exer i se thereof. So then as you are members of the Catholic Church, you must stock your best possession, and resolve to live upon that in all your other sequestrations, which is, the possessing your souls in patience. For indeed, no body can possess his soul, (that is, remain master of it) but by this security, for without this hold of our minds, the world hath power to alienate them by all casualties and violences that invade them; and this is the reason why Christ, who considereth nothing in his Church but souls, having left this safeguard for them, hath exposed all the rest to the injuries of the world, as not worthy his protection; so as having a sufficient power given us to maintain the possession of our souls, we need not fear any despoiling of such things, of which, the deprivement may improve that possession, more than the fruition; for the burning of our houses, and the consumption of all our temporalties, make such ashes, as are the best soiling can be cast upon our earth for the bearing of patience; and so we may fructify this possession of our souls, even by the perishment of our fortunes; since I may then say with the Apostle, 
Heb. 10.36  Patience is necessary for you, that you may receive the promise of possessing your souls. I may assure you consequently, that you may improve the best part of your estates, as Catholics, in all your sentences, and sequestrations under that notion, for you have the best treasure of the Church to undamage you, which is the conformity to Christ's sufferings, which are better than indulgences granted out of the redundant treasures of his passions, for these do but deduct from temporary pains, and the other do improve eternal glory.  
All you therefore who are suffering under the predicament of Catholics, have no worse a cause to claim that disposition of you, which S. 
Heb. 10.34  Paul commends in the Church of his days, in those great fights of affliction she sustained, when the Christians took with joy the spoil of their goods, knowing that they had a better and a permanent substance, since the same permanent assignment is made to you for all your privations, and in some respect your portions are mended since that day, though the purchase cost you not so dear as it did the then persecuted Catholics, for the accidental beatitude of heaven is augmented since those days by the addition of many millions of glorified souls, every one of which is some increase of joy mutually to each beatifyed soul, by a participation reflected from one another's joys, and so the number of the blessed souls, in this regard, as it riseth, raiseth the glory of heaven. Wherefore it may now be better challenged of you this rejoicing in your traffic for heaven, with the loss of your goods, since you give less for it then the tortured Primitive Christians, and have more in it.  
For this consideration then, you who (as the Apostle saith) have access through your faith into this grace wherein you stand, 
Rom. 5.4.  and glory in hope of the glory of the sons of God, ought also to glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, by which Christ hath ordained you shall possess your souls. And it may well be, that those who spoil and dispossess you of your houses and lands, do restore your souls to you, which were too much possessed by them, and thus you may be re-estated in the best part of yourselves, which peradventure was sequestered by your own estates. For you know this was the case of the young man in the Gospel, whose soul was under the seizure of his own possessions, which did put a worse restraint upon him, then is upon any of your persons, when he had nothing to hold him from following Christ, but the bands of his own abundances, the which proved both sequestration, and imprisonment of his soul. Whereupon Christ asketh, 
Mar. 3.37  What permutation shall a man give for his own soul? since there is nothing a condign exchange for the possession of our souls, you may chance be much beholding to those who have given you your own souls at so low a rate as that which they have taken from you.  
The great builder of Magazines had his soul sequestered the same night his Works were finished; and it may be many of your souls have been restored to you the same day your houses have been plundered, and your lands sequestered, for the next degree of leaving all to follow Christ, is the having all taken from you for his sake; and there are many vocations which do not admit the relinquishing of all temporalties, but there is none dispensed with, in point of a cheerful acceptance of the loss of all for Christ: so that to repine at any privation for God's sake, is not only below the perfection, but without the obligation of Christianity. 
● Cor. 6.6  Catholics. therefore must put on this armour of righteousness, either on the right hand, or on the left; some by a voluntary disseisure of all, which answers to the right hand as being Christian perfection, but all must wear it on the left hand at least, as a shield in the warfare of this life, which relateth to a patiented submission unto all the violences of this world, which despoil and expropriate us of such temporalities, as we might possess for the service of God, according to the several necessities of our callings; the which when they are extorted from us by the injustice of the world, we must account as called for by God, to some other use, and so we may say of our goods, as S. Paul doth of our lives, 
Rom. 14.8.  Whether we live, we live to our Lord, and whether we die, we die to our Lord. If our goods continue in our hands, they are consecrated to God; and if they be torn from us, they are still offered up to him by our acceptance of his will, unto which, our obedience is our sacrifice; so that we ought to say always of our Fortunes, Whether they live, or die, they are still our Lords.  
In conformity to this, Saint Paul describeth to us the state of true suffering Catholics, By honour and dishonour, 
2 Cor. 6.8.  by infamy and good fame, as seducers, and as true, as they that are unknown, and known, as dying, behold we live, as chastened, and not killed, as sorrowful, but always rejoicing, as needy, but enriching many, as having nothing, and possessing all things. These times afford you without ask the one half of these properties of Saints; and you must be humble suitors by your prayers, that God (by the intercession of the Apostles, and others whom he hath been pleased to make thus completely Saints) would vouchsafe you the grace of the other half of these qualities, which the world cannot give you, that you may say with S. 
Rom. 8.37 In all these things we overcome, because of him that hath loved us.  Paul, In his omnibus super amus propter eum qui dilexit nos.  
Among all the figures which the Fathers have found in the bush that flamed, and did not burn, this seemeth one of the most apposite, The state of the Catholic Church; for she hath always been in the fire of tribulation, which hath illustrated, and purified, rather than at all consumed her. The Spirit of God residing in her, hath given that quality to her fire, which the Fathers say was in that of the bush, which became more fresh and verdant in the midst of the flame; and they who look upon the Church in all ages, shall find both inflammation and verdure conjoined in her perpetual passions, and her propagations. It was the same fire, that which came down upon the heads of the Apostles, and that which flamed in the bush. Wherefore it is not strange they should both have those correspondent qualities of ardency without combustion. When you see therefore the Church on fire, you need not fear the consumption, knowing that God is in the flame. And the holy Spirit, to intimate to us, that the Church is of proof against all elements, 
Psa. 45.5.  telleth us by the Psalmist in prediction of her estate, The violence of the river maketh the city of God joyful, the Highest hath sanctified his tabernacle, the very torrents that break in upon her shall water and fecundate her.  
Whereupon I may fitly say to you in all your exigencies in the name of our Pastor bonus, Fear not little Flock, for it hath pleased your Father to give you a Kingdom, out of which the whole multitude of Churches, and states that are now set up against you, cannot banish you. Remember that he who sent the dearest of his flock as sheep among Wolves, could have sent them as whelps of the Lion of Juda, to have destroyed all those beasts he exposed them to, but as they were members of the Lamb, not of the Lion; that is, of his humanity, not of his Divinity. So he chose to make them suitable first, to his infirmer portion, before he would assimilate them to his triumphing condition. He could have sent S. Paul to Rome in greater triumph than Nero, but he was better pleased to send him thither in chains, and S. Paul charged with his fetters, glorieth as in his proper throne, remembering so much his being raised up together, 
Eph. 2.6.  and made to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, as he seemeth to mind little his present depression in his chains, wherein he boasts as in the seal of his Commission and Legatship. 
Eph. 6.20.  This was the order of Christ upon his choicest ministers; so as you need not wonder at any temporary distresses you are reduced to as members of that Church, whose being exempted from error, overpayeth her being exposed to affliction; for sure the burdens of the Israelites are much to be preferred before the darkness of the land, out of which, they were excepted. How much more than are they to be pitied who are making such Churches as have need of temporal arms for their subsistence, then are those, who are suffering in such a Church as no human violence can demolish? For Christ having left unto it his passions, hath also promised the presence of his person unto the consummation of the World. 
Mat. 28.20.   
I will conclude this point of the Covenant of suffering as Catholics, with this clear evincement of it by S. Paul's testimony, who saith, 
1 Cor. 15.19 If in this life only we be hoping in Christ, we are more miserable than all men.  Si in hac vitâ tantum in Christ sperantes sumus, miserabiliores sumus omnibus hominibus, so as our portion in this life seems to be decreed so constantly miserable, as we are not allowed to flatter ourselves with the hopes of felicity in this world. Justly therefore, where the Apostle bids us Be rejoicing in hope, 
Rom. 12.12  he joineth to it, the being patiented in tribulation, knowing all our hope must rise out of sufferances, as they are the ligaments, and connections of the body to a crucified head. Wherefore I will desire you for your comfort, as well as your conviction in this point, to cast your thoughts upon the Cross, and consider only the last miracle which Christ was pleased his body should exhibit to us, after his soul was departed from it. You may note how out of that wound which Longinus the Soldier gave him, after he was dead, there issued the two greatest mysteries of the Church, to oblige us to believe that much more the head himself never woundeth or permitteth to be offended any of the members of his living body upon earth, but upon some special reason, which always resulteth to the good of that part he striketh, unless the part itself prove the impediment by some miscarriage in the state of cure.  
Wherefore that portion of his body amongst you, which is now bleeding under his hand, need fear nothing but their own ill diet, & irregularity in their hurts; for they may prove so healthful to you, as they may convert even the diseases of your natural bodies, into a good constitution of your souls; and the regiment of yourselves in this case is prescribed by S. Paul, 
1. Cor. 16.13. Watch ye, stand in the faith, do manfully, and be strengthened.  upon occasion of the same infirmity in his time, Vigilate, state in fide, viriliter agite, & confortamini. This prescript containeth a direction to your three constitutions of Sufferers; Do manfully, relateth to you as you are men; Be strengthened, belongeth to you as Christians; Watch and stand in the faith, respecteth you as Catholics; and if you apply these remedies respectively to your infirmities, even every one of these your three, Vae, Vae, Vae's upon earth, shall afford you a Sanctus in heaven; and so as Men, Christians, and Catholics, weeping here, you may attain to the singing eternally of Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, in heaven.   

CHAP. IU. Of the manner of discharging these duties of Sufferings.  
WE may observe, that Christ spoke neither so frequently, nor so clearly of any one thing to his Disciples, as of the sufferings and passions he was to undergo; and yet they never understood him in them. They were always either in such fear, or such wonder concerning them, as they never durst ask the question for the explication of their perplexities. They quickly sought the explication of all his Parables, 
Mar. 9.31.  that seemed referred either to his power or his promises; but in this point of his disparagements, and his passions, they seemed so little desirous of an illumination, as when he was ready to be seized according to his prediction, and upon the point of separation from them, he is feign to reproach them that they were dejected only, not desirous to be informed whither he was going, 
John 15.5.6.  whereupon depended all their reperations. The apprehension of sufferance and passion seems to have such a quality as is reported of the Torpedo, for it often stupifies, and benumbeth our nature so, as it leaves not so much as even curiosity stirring in it towards an inquisition of relief.  
In like manner there may be many who have heard much of our exposure to sufferings and afflictions in this life, and yet remain little enlightened in the right conception of them; and which is worse, little inquisitive of that method, whereby we must extract benefit and utility out of them. Wherefore it is requisite to exhibit as fair a copy of that method as I can let forth to their comprehensions, that they may not be dismayed by this Onus Domini, 
Jer. 23. The burden of the Lord.  nor be deluded by this supposition, that they are all the spiritual children of Abraham, who have this mark of the Covenant of sufferances upon their bodies, or their fortunes; for it is not this moral circumcision, or uncircumcision, that entitles us to the promises, but the spiritual signature of Christ upon the heart; it is not the exterior infliction of misery, that qualifies us for the reward proposed, nor a present immunity and quiet, that ejects us out of the society of Christ's passions; it is the interior disposition in both cases, that constituteth the rightful title to remuneration. In those who are actually exercised under their crosses, it is the patiented, and pious resignation which intitleth them to the conditions of the Covenant; and in those who are in a present suspension, or truce, enjoying a serene conveniency, it is the preparation and disposure of their hearts, to accept humbly all orders of God, in how sharp a stile soever they shall be issued against their persons, or estates. This frame of the mind, is their evidence before the eyes of God, of their right to the contract of suffering members of Christ. Job's disposition in his quotidian sacrifices, was no worse an odour to God, than the suavity of his patience, fuming up from that mean altar, whereon he lay offering up his ashes. The material part of affliction, doth not sanctify, no more than the same part in alms, or charity, doth expiate: they are both but Egena elementa, 
Gal. 4.9. Barren elements.  of themselves; the heart, and the spirit wherewith they are designed, animateth and enliveneth them.  
Wherefore we may say of sufferings, that which Christ said of a case not much unlike to this, 
Mar. 7.15  That no affliction which goeth into a man doth actually sanctify him, but it is the spirit of sufferance which resideth in him, that must render him holy, for out of the heart only good intentions, and humble conformities do issue; so as the external crosses that fall upon the man, do not formally purify him, it is what comes out of the heart, as the emissions of humility, patience, and charity, which his heart sendeth forth to meet, and embrace all God's pleasures, which can only hollow, and sanctify the man. Therefore I may very fitly say, if any man hath ears to hear let him hear, that you may not prove so unhappy, as to bear the weight, and heat of the day, and to forfeit at last your hire, for though God saith He chastiseth every child he receiveth, he doth not say, He receiveth every one that he chastiseth.  
S. James therefore when he proposeth to his distressed countrymen, The esteeming it all joy, their falling into various trials and temptations, coupleth this reason with his proposition, 
James 1.2.  Knowing that the probation of your faith worketh patience. So that the benefit must be derived from the effect of tribulation, which is the producing of patience, the which doth not naturally spring out of misery, for this is but the matter, or the subject whereon this virtue is exercised, not the spirit, or form of this holy disposition. For which reason the Apostle compleateth his advice, by proceeding to direct them, how to compass this necessary adjunction to the matter of their afflictions, to render them subjects of joy, saying, If any of you want wisdom, let him ask it of God, who giveth it to all men abundantly. So as this joy, is a spirit extracted out of patience, not inherent in the matter of passion; and patience is a virtue too celestial to be educed as it were ex traduce, by the material body of affliction. It is infused by the holy spirit, which S. Paul confirmeth, when he saith, 
Rom. 5.  that Tribulation worketh patience, showing the reason of this operation in the next words, after the sequence of many good productions, derived from one another, he setteth this for the effective cause of all, because The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the holy Ghost. 
Rom. 5.5.  So as it is the spirit of God, moving upon these Waters, which divideth the light from the darkness, not the Chaos itself, that actively produceth these two lights of patience and hope, although the troubles and confusions of this world, may be the elements, out of which the spirit may extract them. For sufferings seem to be to patience, that, which matter, is to the artificer; for though the art be seated in the mind, yet it cannot be actuated, and expressed, but by some matter that supports it; so patience, though it be a spiritual disposition inherent in the soul, cannot be exercised but upon some passion, and contrariety, which is the subject that renders it visible, and discernible; for the Theory of this virtue can no more assure us of our abilities in it, than the study of all the Geometrical rules of Sculpture, can ascertain a Statuary of his sufficiency, until he hath experimented it upon either stone and brass, or wax, or clay at least; some matter is requisite, to reflect to him the sight of his notions form and reduced to their last term, which is a visible exhibition of them. So there must be some afflictions, though not the severest, yet some at least of a softer quality, which must minister some matter of contrariety and vexation, to be as the ground, and subject, exposing to ourselves the work of our patience upon it.  
Wherefore as joy in tribulations must be derived from Patience, so this virtue must be acquired by Prayer. They who look lower than God for patience, do commonly look also lower than heaven for the order of their afflictions, and so fall short both in the knowledge of the nature of their evils, and their remedies. For they who rely on nature, or moral reason for their cure, may well be judged to impute their malady to Fortune; Whereupon S. James giveth this further advise, to that of our petitioning, and postulating of wisdom, 
James 6.  that We must ask in faith, without any doubting or haesitation; not tossing in an irresolution of referring our crosses to the eye of Providence, or to the blindness of Fortune. Such a wavering aestuation of spirit the Apostle saith, must not expect to receive any thing. Our prayer therefore must be as fixed in the belief of God's special providence in all contingencies, as it is in the confession of a God, for the one involveth the other; and then we shall find such a joy in patience, as our reason itself shall witness to be divine, as being beyond her reach so much, as she must avow it to be Digitus Dei. Wherefore I beseech you to beware of the fluctuation of these times, between the strength of moral reason, and the rest of faith; for there is nothing so injurious to reason, as under the pretence of exalting it, to raise it out of the own sphere of activity, exacting such effects of Reason, as are not to be found lower than the orb of grace. For they who assign themselves peace and repose in all tribulations, out of the stock of Philosophy, prejudice Reason much by their over-promising for it. For Moral Philosophy at the highest, is but as it were a Meteor suspended in the air, between the earth of a mere sensual, 
1 Cor. 15. The first man of earth earthly; The second man from heaven heavenly.  and the firmament of a spiritual man. It is not so much raised above the man, who is de terrâ terrenus, as it is below him, who is de coelo coelestis; wherefore all the sweet-sounding and harmonious tongues of the Philosophers, are but sounding brass, or tinkling cymbals, when they come to be used, without the charity infused by the fiery tongues of Zion. We shall find the hollowness of such tongues which raised their noise to our ears, very light, when we take them into our hands to weigh against the heaviness and gravations of sad crosses and oppressions.  
Methinks many of the Heathen Philosophers, supposed in their prescripts concerning the mind's insensibleness in all the passions, and pressures of the body, that the body had but such a coexistence of place with the mind, as we say those bodies of air have with the Angels that assume them, in which those spirits are only as movers in a movable subject, not at all united, or affected, th●● matter appeareth about them, which is not informed by them, but assumed by them, to expose them to our sight, and so is only moved by them without any connexion to them. So sure their suppositions, that the mind may remain unconcerned in all the sufferances and tortures of the flesh, require that our bodies should be but such eyrie matter, rather moved only, then informed by our souls. For that apathy, the Stoics propose in all the bodies distresses, cannot hold in that connexion our souls and bodies have with one another; and so whosoever shall rely upon their conclusions, shall find their conceits eyrie and vacuous, and their own bodies too solid, and too closely conjoined to their souls, not to be affected with the burdens and pressures of it. Wherefore our faith teacheth us, to resort to a higher Principle residing in our soul, and yet is no part of it, which is the Holy spirit of God, infused by his grace, whereby we are instructed in the incapacities, and deficiencies of our own nature; and the detection of our minds inability, in her own single power, proveth her enforcement, nay inablement, to resent all the bodies grievances, & yet to bear them without distraction or reluctancy; and this discernment of that obnoxious state the soul is exposed unto, showeth her, That as she can do nothing of herself but suffer, and complain, so in virtue of that supplemental aid, she can rejoice in tribulations, and profess, 
Phil. 4.14. I can do all things in him that strengthens me.  Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat.  
Whereupon we must be possessed of this principle, that peace of mind doth not spring up in affliction, as the plants did in Paradise, 
Genes. 2.  without either rain or culture. Patience which is the dew of heaven, must be drawn from thence; and this, as it is attracted only by the means Elias used to open heaven; so likely, it holds this analogy with his small cloud he could scarce discern at first, which by degrees, came to a fullness 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 gins to show us some little visible token of God's conversion towards us, & so by a sequence of more appearance of his grace, we come by these paces, into that full measure of patience, which the Psalmist acknowedgeth, in secundùm multitudinem dolorum meorum in cord meo, 
Psalm. 93.19. According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, thy consolations have made my soul joyful.  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 public prayer. And certainly whosoever shall follow this method in prayer, of patience, perseverance, and expecting our Lord, shall find the same fruits springing out of tribulation; and God hath preserved for us, David's confections, to minister to all our distresses, the which we may take at all hours, out of the divine custodiary of the Psalms, which are prognostics of all our diseases, and a ready confection of remedies we may repair to in all occasions and emergencies.  
With good reason, I would therefore humbly advise all in their several necessities, to resort thither, both for a pattern of prayer, and a precedent of the rare effects of it. There every suffering condition may find this advice, Exultent, 
Psalm. 39 Let all that seek thee rejoice, 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 gladness, through any cloud that hangs over us. And this day openeth farther, upon all those who advance in the fervour of prayer, until at last they come to this meridional point of Laetati sumus pro diebus quibus nos humiliasti, 
Psal. 89. We have rejoiced for the days wherein thou hast humbled us, the years wherein we have seen evils.  annis quibus vidimus mala. Not only days shall pass away lightly, with all the weight of their evils upon them, but even years of persecutions set upon this carriage of consolation, shall roll away as fast as days. When prayer hath atracted the spirit of patience, we know then from whence we receive it, and so look always 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 internal than other violences, whereas if we were resting with the Psalmist under the covering of the wings of Prayer, Truth should compass us as a shield, and we should not be afraid of the fear in the night, 
Psal. 90.  or the arrow flying in the day, of business walking in darkness, or of the midday devil. Here are exemptions from the prejudices of all sorts of persecutions, 
Psal. 61. But yet my soul be thou subject to God, because my patience is from him.  which these times will adapt easily enough without any clearer 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 spiritual arm which must reach down Patience to you, I believe 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 paternal care and tenderness 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 several egregious documents and patterns of men, which (like knots upon a weak reed that confirm and strengthen it) might support, and fortifiye the frail substance of humane nature by example; until even the image of the invisible God, 
Coloss. 1.  and the firstborn of all creatures, nay the Creator himself of all things, was to come in the fullness of time, to take this reed of our humanity into his hand, and to make of it a sceptre of Patience, with which he would exercise his dominion over passion, and death itself. In the mean time, lest the world should want some marks to guide itself 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 near to the mischief; sufferings were the inventions of sin, and the salve of them the prescript of innocence; for which cause, as their own 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 stayed 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, than any one image of this holy hand, before the Original of all patience exhibits himself; whose becoming passable, 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, than a natural, in his members. For if we consider ourselves participants of the divine nature, it may seem 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 nevertheless, 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 himself, when he removed from his distressed friends, shown the virtue 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 less controversy in the virtue of their divine manner of suffering, than they did in the prodigious part of their actions: these were often imputed to the power of the devil, but the astonishing part of their meekness, equanimity, and patience, the devil himself knew not how to calumniate; his pride would not allow him to own such expressions of power; and so that temper of passiveness was accepted as divine, often, when the thunder and lightning of the other side of their Commission, passed for diabolical.  
Patience then seemeth a property, which God doth not allow the devil so much as to counterfeit the possession of; He is permitted to transfigure himself into an Angel of light, rather than into the form of a resigned contented sufferer, as being an unalienable prerogative of Christ, and the most dangerous delusion, whereby he could work upon the spirits of men; and therefore this is the special difference between the suggestions of good and evil spirits to us, when they come both clothed in pious supervestures, that the hand of the proud spirit leaves always 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, always calmeth, and stilleth any emotion or impatience in the possession of his graces, and leaves no heat or glowing in our hearts, that soliciteth 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 Christ's advice, possess their souls in patience, which giveth them so inviolable a possession of their minds, as the devil can neither distrain them by the power of his ministers injuries, nor distract them by the paintings of his own artifices.  
Wherefore God doth punish the devil, by allowing him the exercising of the patience of his Saints, as S. Gregory saith, Holy Job was more Satan's torturer, than Satan 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 devil's subtlety, 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 eternal impatience the fuel 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 kind of image of the state of their beatitude, while in all their external commotions, they retain a smooth, and even composure of mind, which is a kind of image of eternity, that is always 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 powerful, as it can turn into pleasure, all those occurrences which sensuality must run away from, to save her petty joys. All sorts of injuries of fortune, or of time, are presently translated by this virtue into nourishment and delectation; for patience, as Tertullian saith, hath God answerable for all she lays up in his hand; if she deposit an injury in his hand, he is her revenger; if a loss, he is her reimburser; if a sickness, he is her mediciner; if death, he is her reviver. What a freedom doth God allow Patience, to make him her debtor of all she commits to his trust? And thus we see, unless we can find 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 evil, which that did assuage 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 enjoys 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 & enurement to sufferings, some become by degrees (as it were) impassable, and lovers of trials, for as fire doth no longer burn ashes, the which receiving no hurt from it, do seem 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, than ashes are by fire, and to desire rather to keep alive the fire of his tribulations, then to extinguish 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 sorrowful property of them.  
We see also Christ's 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, than their powers of speaking all tongues, casting out of devils, or curing all diseases. Their patience in their own wounds, was a more advantageous grace, than their gifts of cures upon all maladies, for by that they improved their own souls, and by this, they did but repair the bodies of others; they were but organs to pass 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 expressed 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 pearls even in number, hanging upon the crowns 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 persuasion. Before Christ dignified Patience, and rendered it so meritorious, the Heathens were so disposed to honour it, by the light of nature, as this transcendency of it in Christians, easily prevailed with them, to seek 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.  
The Philosophers extol Patience so much, as they set it even above Fate, to which they subjected their gods. One of them saith very elegantly, O admirable power of patience! Other virtues do in some measure seem to contend against Fate, Patience only seems to expugnat it; for those things which Fate hath decreed immutable, and necessary, Patience in some manner changeth, turning what was necessary, into the being voluntary; and as he that doth ill, perverteth his own goods into evils, so he who suffereth evils, well, converteth them into goods, because by a virtuous tolerating of evils, he himself becomes good. What shall Christians than say in honour of Patience, when the true author of Fate, (to whom nothing could be a necessity) was pleased to subject himself to a necessity of patience? For his humane state may be said to oblige him to it, as it is inseparable from sufferings; and he chose even the most passive incidents to that nature, as poverty, pain, and ignominy, and by all these onerations designed the exalting of this virtue of Patience. Wherefore as the Heathens said, it was a spectacle worthy of God, a patiented man wrestling with Fortune, we may say much more, that it is a declaration of our partaking of the divine nature, our patiented submission to the injuries of Fortune, since in nothing we exhibit a clearer testimony of Christ's communication of this dignity to us, then in this of suffering in a temper of patience above our nature.  
And it is not only the excellency of this virtue, which recommendeth it to Christians, but the necessity of it, for the subsistence of all other virtues, for Patience doth that office to all the other, as moisture doth to the earth, which compacteth and consolidateth the parts thereof, which otherwise would moulder away, and be inconsistent; and so all good dispositions of the mind, must needs scatter and dissipate quickly, if they were not united and combined together by patience; the wind of temptations that bloweth so continually upon them, must needs disperse them, if they had not this compression of patience, to hold them fastened together. For which cause, S. Paul telleth the Christians in this case of their probation, Patience is necessary for you, 
Heb. 10.36.  that doing the will of God, you may receive the promise; for patience is the next disposition towards perseverance, to which all the promises are annexed, for final perseverance is but a line of Christian patience, drawn to the end of our life: Faith, Hope, and Charity, cannot persevere without this basis of patience, to sustain them in this valley of tears, wherein we are now sojourners. Insomuch that Tertullian accommodateth to patience, that sequence of virtues which S. Paul assigneth to charity, 
1 Cor. 13.  and saith, Love is not elated, nor froward, and suffereth all, by this quality of being patiented. 
Chap. 8.9. I purposed therefore to bring her to me to live together, knowing that she will communicate with me of good things, and will be a comfort of my cogitation, and tediousness.  Much may be said of patience, but sure nothing more sublime than this of Tertullian, who investeth her with all the rights of Charity in this life. Which considered, I cannot be said improperly to commend patience to your conditions, in these considerations of the Wiseman, Proposui ergo hanc adducere mihi ad convivendum, quoniam mecum communicabit de bonis, & erit allocutio cogitationis & taedii mihi. She may be so good company to you, as you may neither want your friends, nor your fortunes.   

CHAP. VI Perfect Patience defined; imperfect consolated, and directed.  
NOw I have set up to you, Patience, as a kind of brazen serpent, to cure all the stingings you are exposed unto, I must desire you to understand clearly the integral constitution of this virtue; for I ascribe so much efficacy to it, supposing the Patience I handle, to be an habit, or disposition in herent in our wills, which receiveth humbly, and beareth uncomplainingly, all sorts of temporal grievances and passions, in order to a conformity to the will of God, and our similitude to Jesus Christ: or as S. Augustine saith, True Patience ordaineth us to endure all kinds of evils of pain, to avoid all manner of ills of guilt. These definitions do not admit either a lame, or a pied Patience, to enter into this high form of efficacy, that is, if it be peccant, either in progress and continuation, or imperfect in the integrity that is required in it, of submitting to all sorts and degrees of sufferances, as coming all from one providence. If we have any exception against any of this Jury of Gods choosing to try us by, it is a sign our patience is but spotted, and particoloured; or if it be intermitting, and by fits only, this betrayeth the unsoundness of it. Wherefore we must endeavour to reertifie our nature in these two deficiencies, to which it is very liable. The first is, of having refractory intervals, in which we let in impatience, and murmur, to detract at least from the entireness of this virtue, and suffer our senses to speak too freely against that which offendeth them. The other is, of our aptness to make motions to God, for some special exceptions in our tribulations, resigning ourselves but partially to his design upon us; and likely this deprecation is of the present cross that is upon us, believing we could place any other to sit lighter upon us, if that were removed, with which we are actually charged; and thus we are commonly tempted, instead of suing for patience to God, to desire his patience in our repugnancies, and that he would change his mind rather than ours. This is a familiar irregularity in our natures, in the point of our sins, as well as of our sufferings; there are but few, but would relinquish all other, upon condition to have some one bosom sin dispensed with; and so in our afflictions, there are very few, that have not some bosom sorrow, that they would compound for the being exempted from, and offer a resignation to all the rest. But this is that he sitation, or stammering, as I may say, in out patience, which is a great impediment in our conversation with God.  
I do not censure the first motions, or the propensions of our nature to such eases and discharges for such a fault as should distract or scandalise any body with their own imperfection in this kind; for as S. James saith, In mult is offendimus omnes; 
Jam. 3.3. In many things we offend all; if any offend not, in word, this is a perfect man.  si quis in verbo non offendit, hic perfectus est. These inclinations to ease, are (as we may say) lapsus linguae, non mentis, but such trips and faltrings as are hardly fully to be redressed: therefore this animadversion, is intended only for advise, to every one that finds these knots and stonds in their patience, to endeavour to work them out faithfully by Prayer, and not to stop, or hang willingly upon them. But the interruption or discontinuance of our patience, and breaking out into fits of intemperate complaints, is much more to be precautioned and marked for reformation. For according to S. Augustine's similitude, this is not only to strike out of tune, but even to break the instrument. For he compareth Patience to a Lute, and tribulations to the strings, which while they are well touched, make music; and so whilst patience praiseth God, and gives thanks in tribulations, it yields a sweet melody to the ears of God; but when we fall into querulousnesse, and murmur, we break the Lute. When therefore we are so far advanced towards victory, as the having our senses disarmed by affliction, (the pleasures of which are our enemy's sharpest instruments) we must watch, that he forge not new arms out of our pains, which God hath given us as armour against his shafts; and when he hath scarce any art left to wound us by sensuality, through the hardness of our conditions, than he tempteth us by the weight of our armour, to bring us to throw it off by impatience and repining: which indeed is to cast off the defensive armour, that God giveth the Spirit against the devil and the flesh. When the tempter hath nothing left but pain whereby to provoke us unto offences, one would think he were not to be feared, since all impatience is but a new pain, which is proposed to us, let us therefore consider that consequence, when we are solicited to unquietness and reluctation.  
When we suffer by the violence and injustice of our enemies, the Devil would get nothing by this negotiation, if we should bear it patiently, and virtuously, for he would lose as much on the one side, as he had got on the other. What he had gained upon those he had made his officers, and emissaries of iniquity and injustice, he would lose as much by the sufferers improvement and sanctification, and so his malice would be unprofitable unto him; therefore when he hath prevailed with the one part, to act his suggestions upon the innocent, than he turneth to the other passive side, and labours to excite there, murmur, fury, or impatience, that his trade may render him profit on both sides, a great prize by the malice he imports into the hearts of his factors, and may have some gain also exported to him, out of the minds of the patients. We know when Satan had set the Sabaeans, and the Chaldaeans a-work against Job, he left no art unessayed to infuse the fire of murmur and impatience into his breast, and he took the subtlest way; for he got fully into that half of him, that lay in his bosom; and though he did not kindle any spark of rebellion in his own holy breast, yet we may say his heart was a little overheated in the ardours of that fiery furnace he lay so long in, for his breath savoreth a little of some distemper which he found in it. By which we are not warranted to let our tongues lose, when they press, and strain to break from us, to run after some provocation to murmur, and complaint, but rather warned to be exactly vigilant in all such motions, since he, whom God chose for his Champion, as having not his like upon the earth, had such words shaken out of him in his storm, as we may believe he resented more their having escaped him, than he did all the violations he had suffered from his adversary, for he never wished any thing recalled but his words. 
Job 30.34.35.   
This than may justly be a forceable motive to us, to set a watch over our lips, when God hath set such a guard over our heart, as affliction, especially in a good cause. Let us not then, when there is no fault in the cause, make one in the calamity by our impatience, since we ought rather to render double praises, both for our affliction, and our innocence. When we are punished for crimes, we ought to have patience; and when we suffer innocently, we may well add gladness to it; and we find a good cause producing this effect, in the Macedonians, when they were in your cases; whom the holy Ghost hath left upon record as a precedent for you, 
1 Cor. 8.2.  In much experience of tribulation they had abundance of joy; and their very deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their simplicity. All this treasure of virtue issued out of the mine of Patience and long animity, which maketh by the power of grace even the duration of the pain an antidote against impatience.  
But by exhibiting unto you this high mystery of Patience, which is, as I may say, a sacred confirmation of all virtue, I do not intent to discourage those, who are but yet initiated, and catechised in this mystery; for this ultimate perfection of rejoicing in tribulation, is not a precept that claimeth our performance, but a council that showeth the excellency we may aspire unto; which the grace of Christ hath set within our reach, to exercise that virtue, which though it seem supernatural, is but suitable to the members of such an head. Those therefore, who find not in their natures this finished disposition, need not perplex themselves with any scruple of faultiness, for if they are but in this temper, of sincerely and humbly demanding of God that grace, which is requisite for the discharge of their duties in these cases of tentations, though they find for the present some aversion and remtencie in their minds against their miseries, they may safely conclude, that God will minister and suppeditate grace sufficient for their support, from falling into any direct sedition, so long as they feel a sound and rectified desire to advance in the state of perfect abnegation. Let them not disquiet themselves, with their distances from the top of the mountain, so long as they are faithfully climbing. In this case, the indulgence of Christ is very applicable, when he saith, Those that are not against him, are with him. So long as we find not our will joined with our weakness, against this self-denial, we shall not be charged with disloyalty.  
There was a great cloud of infirmity in that father's faith, when he began with Christ, 
Ma●. 9.21. If thou canst any thing help us. I do believe, Lord, help my incredulity.  in Si quid potes, adjuvanos; yet as soon as he was advanced to Credo Domine, adjuva incredulitatem meam, his suit was granted. In like manner, when we begin with much imperfection, we must not distract ourselves in apprehensions of our faintness, but proceed sincerely to I desire, O Lord, a perfect conformity to all thy orders, help my inconformity. This prayer constantly pursued, will certainly obtain the expulsion of that spirit which casts us often into fire and water, into several distempers in our afflictions. Let us remember Christ's lesson in this case, 
All things are possible to him that believeth.  Omnia possibilia sunt credenti; if we aspire faithfully to this perfection, we shall quickly find we have no dangerous enemies left, when we have once undertaken ingenuously our own reduction. We must not expect to taste suddenly the good relish of mortification. The first fruits of Canaan were held to be unclean, to figure to us, that there is always some impurity in our first thoughts, and designs of a spiritual conformity; we must expect such a progression in this perfection of Christianity, as Isaac made in the digging of his Wells in the Land of Promise. The first water he called contention, the second enlargement, & at the last he came to that he called abundance, when all strife and difficulty was ceased. So we shall in the beginning of our digging for this refreshing water of Patience, find the inhabitants of our earth (our sensitive appetities) raise great opposition, and in our pursuance and progress we shall meet with less contradiction, 
Job. 7.38. Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.  and more enlargement of our spirits, and at the last after a faithful prosecution we come to that abundance of water, which Christ promiseth, Flumina de ventre ejus fluent aquae vivae; which is not only acquiescence, but joy and exultation in all pressures and distresses. This is the method of our advance in spiritual graces, as the Psalmist designeth to us, 
Psal. 87. They shall go from virtue into virtue.  Ibunt de virtute in virtutem.  
Wherefore we must not be dismayed and relaxed, when at first we encounter difficulty and contestation in our senses, against patience and conformity, but remember how gracious and indulgent God is to a little tender virtue, that hath but the quality of sincereness; 
Apoc. 3.8. Behold, I have given before thee a door opened, which no man can shut, because thou hast a little power, and hast kept my word, an● hast not denied my name.  as the holy Spirit intimateth by the Angel in the Revelation, saying, Ecce dedi coram te estium apertum quod nemo potest claudere, quia modicam habes virtutem, servasti verbum meum, & non negasti nomen meum. So as here we see, God, to a little disposition, openeth a large passage towards plenitude and consummation. When therefore we find our hearts set to keep God's Word, and that in the first inchoation of our virtue, we do but accept afflictions in his name, he that is Sanctus, 
The holy one, & the true one.  & Verax, will open that door of perfection which the violence of the whole world shall not be able to shut any more against us. Wherefore in all our straits and coarctations, either of our spirits, or of our fortunes, let us remember how the holy Spirit calls to us, Dilata vs tuum, & implebo illud. 
Psal 8.11. Dilate thy mouth, and I will fill it.  As long as we do not contract and shrink our hearts in a perverse chagrin, we need not fear the finding them yield, and give a little at first in the pressures of affliction; and though we never arrive at this last station of perfect Patience, of joying in tenrations, there are many mansions in heaven, which answer the several promotions upon earth; Non omnes Apostoli, 
1 Thes. 5.14. Not all Apostles, not all Prophets.  non omnes Prophetae; the Angel promiseth their reward, Timentibus nomen tuum, pusillis, & magnis; so long as we acknowledge our own minority, we may hope for our portion among the little ones. 
Apocal. 13 To them that fear thy name, little and great.  This I say only by S. Paul's warrant of Consolumini pufillanimes, suscepite infirmos, for I persuade every one to this holy ambition of ascending as high even as the steps of persecution can raise them; and there is no ladder so good as this of the Cross, to scale by; and in our invitation to the nuptial supper of the Lamb, it is not humility, but rather pusillanimity, to aim to sit down but in the lowest place; they who point no higher, design to stay too near the door, and so may more easilyer fall short of that, than they who aspire to the place of those who have left all for Christ, which is the throne of judging nations.  
With good cause then, I humbly advise every ones aspiring to the supremest pitch of patience and resignation; And I have warrant to discharge every one from dejection and confusedness in this case of imperfection, when they do loyally and ingenuously enterprise a proficiency in this virtue. 
Phillip 3.15. Let us as many as are perfect be thus minded, & if you be any otherwise minded, this also God will reveal to you.  And for this reason the Apostle when he adviseth perfection, yet admitteth infirmity to an expectance of Gods perfecting thereof, saying, Quicunque ergo perfecti sumus hoc sentiamus, & si quid aliter sapitis, & hoc vobis Deus revelabit. They who are not already stated in the occomplishment of this virtue, may hope for a further improvement by the compassion of God to ingenuous addresses.  
God's indulgence to the incompleteness of our Patience must therefore be taken hold on, only as a stay to keep us from falling into dejection, and is not to be used as a rest, whereon to lean the wrynesse and bent of our perverted nature; for so we may insensibly in duce an habit of crookedness and petulancy into our own dispositions.  
Let us therefore have this direction of S. James always in our design at least, Let patience have a perfect work, 
James 1.  that you may be perfect, and entire, failing in nothing. By this we may rest assured of the perfection which is contained in Patience, since the Apostle ascribeth this integrity, and indeficiency to it in all things; So that when we are possessed of this compleatment of Patience, than we are instated in a fortune, which is so unobnoxious to the distresses of any want, that all privations administer to us the end of all possessions, which is joy and satisfaction. This hath always been the state of the Saints, 
1 Cor. 6.10.  by which having nothing they were possessing all things. For out of this treasury, they who lose parents, children, houses, 
Mar. 10 30  and Lands, for the Gospel, have their assignment for the hundred-fold now in this time. And, in confirmation of this truth, we find by experience, that there is no condition so perfect in this world, that hath not often need of Patience, to make it tolerable; and they who have perfect Patience, never want any other possession to make their conditions acceptable. All which duly pondered, I shall not need say more in recommendation of this excellent virtue; but it is requisite to close up this point with the recalling to your memory that our only addresses to this plenipotentiary consolation, is a constant re-search of it by prayer. 
2 Thes. 1. Our Lord direct your hearts in the charity of God, & patience of Christ.  In that order therefore I shall leave it to you with this petition of S. Paul for the Thessalonians upon the same occasion, Dominus dirigat corda vestrain charitate Dei, & patientiâ Christi.   

CHAP. 7. Of the great benefits may be extracted out of affliction.  
AS I have produced your obligation to suffer, signed as you are men, sealed as you are Christians with the signet of the Cross, witnessed and delivered as you are Catholics, in the Sacrament of Confirmation, (wherein you deliver your consent as your own deed, whereof the chief officers of the Church are witnesses) I have also suggested to you the most expedient means of losing nothing by this engagement, which is, to procure Patience to be given you for your counter-security from God, to whom you stand bound in this contract of suffering. This is a celestial manner of negotiating, the demanding of him to whom the Indenture is made, the means of discharging it; but this is the method of God, and worthy of himself, to require nothing of his creatures, but what they may be furnished with first from him, for but ask it. I have therefore proposed patience for your discharge, and Prayer for your acquisition of patience; and since Prayer may accommodate you with what you have most need of, your necessities may be said to provide against themselves, for commonly they are infallible furnishers of Prayer.  
And having thus brought you out of the Hospital into the Temple, desiring you to raise your thoughts out of the infirm and wounded part of your condition, to the contemplation of your being imitators, or rather types and figures of that glorified body, which chose this way you are now passing in, to enter into glory, I may hope the having disposed your taste, for the good relish of this chalice of Mount Calvary, whereof you are now to take your part; And this draught you are making, hath more of the cup which Christ promised his Disciples should pledge him in, than the Sacrament of the novelists hath of the cup of the last Supper, since they receive it but as a bare figure, and simple commemoration of the blood of Christ; so as you may comfort yourselves, that even in the interdiction of your Religion, there appeareth as good an image of the passion of Christ, as in the highest exercise of theirs. For even the unbloudy part of your sufferings, are signs, images and symbols of the passion of Christ, and they challenge no more, even for the honour of their Sacrament. Well then may this serve you, to answer that common reproach of your wanting half the Sacrament, that it ill becomes them to object this, who themselves want it all, having taken both from Clergy and Laity that reality, wherein consisteth all the virtue and efficacy of it. But this hath intervened as a Parenthesis of offensive Arms, in this contexture of defensive, which is the work I have only taken in hand. I will therefore reconnect this thread of my discourse, to that web I have my pen upon, which is, The extracting of benefits out of afflictions.  
Many things have usurped the glorious title of goods, by the power of common fame, (which in our natural bodies is a conspiracy of the multitude of our senses against our soul) whereby the received felicity of the world, is placed in things so perilous, and obnoxious, as they are really the less goods, the more they are reputed so. Which easily appears, in the testing and trial of all those flecting fruitions which our cupidities pursue, as riches, honours, pleasures, and the like, the duration whereof is likely the less, the more the desire proves solicitous thereof. The prejudging of our senses, induceth this so unsafe opinion, for their ruling and injuring of us is coetaneous with us, and our reason is not of the same age, which is the cause, why our senses anticipate the apprehension of good and evil; insomuch as our reason being much later called in to advise us, can hardly confute this preoccupation, even by a demonstration of the abusivenesse of such received fallaeys. For Man, as if he studied nothing but to elude the sentence is upon him, seems to set his heart upon nothing, but the eating of his bread without any sweat, and the meeting with no thorns upon the earth. So far are our senses from acquiescing to the sentence of God, as even the society of God himself in labours and crosses, doth hardly convince us of the benedictions contained therein, albeit he hath not only read this lesson upon them, but hath personally infused that quality into them. And shall our faith assent to so high a mystery, seeming so contrary to our reason, and shall we not credit this assertion, of the good of sufferings, because it is averse to our senses? Shall we believe, that under the sordid and despicable veil of flesh and blood, the Creator of heaven and earth was covered, and shall we not easily accord, that under the dark and obscure covers and cases of temporary miseries & afflictions, there remain real glories and benedictions? since as the first is clearly De fide, the second cannot reasonably be denied to be Proximam fidei.  
Me thinks this sense of Crosses, should easily be accepted by Catholics, who are imbued with the belief of so high mysteries, when they believe, that which appears Bread in the blessed Eucharist, to be really the glorious body of the Son of God, there should be little difficulty, to allow those sufferances, which seem ills to our senses, to be really such goods as they are asserted by our faith; for surely, if they have but near so much patience, to make this conversion, as they must have faith to believe the other, all crosses and adversities in this life, are really converted into blessings, while they remain under unhappy and unlikely apparencies, after such a manner as the body of Christ is truly present in the holy Sacrament, though covered from our senses under the veils of no way resembling species.  
Since God then covereth and retecteth the greatest blessing he can confer upon his Church, (it being even his own Son) under so improbable appearances, we may easily believe his corrections, though they are overcast with never so unlikely outsides, to have an interior goodness, and benediction, according to his word, especially, since we are sensibly convinced of this verity by frequent experiments in ourselves and others, but in the other sublime mystery, our faith is always put to strain up to it, and that never descendeth to a manifestation to our reason. Besides, most of the things of this world, which seem to us never so veritable, and sincere, are but veils and cases of somewhat else then is extant in their superficies. For we see the substances and essential forms of nothing, only the figure, colour, and other accidents of all things sensible; and so the colours and shapes of evils in this life, cover and enfold eternal goods, and the specious figures and appearances of pleasures, 
Psal. 11.8. It is good for me that thou hast humbled me. Luke 16. I am tormented in this flame.  shadow over to us everlasting miseries. Whereupon many come to confess with the Psalmist, Bonum mihi quia humiliasti me, and too many to complain with the rioter in the Gospel, Crucior in hac flammâ, for having wanted the gentler fire of this life, 
Thou didst receive good things in thy life time. job. 21. They lean their dates in mirth, and in a moment they go down to hell.  and having had too much of Recepisti bona in vitâ tuâ. For, alas, how many doth this sentence of the holy Spirit surprise, Ducunt in bonis dies suos, & in puncto ad inferna descendunt!  
Although prosperity in this life be not formally an evil, yet as there are many aliments, which are in themselves sound, and harmless, yet unhealthful respectively to several constitutions; so the felicities of this life, find very few such constitutions as can digest them, and convert them into the increase of the body, unto the edifying itself in charity. This is the advance and growth which is expected from the members of Christ, 
Ephes. 4.6.  the augmenting in charity; whereof we may too truly say at least, 
job 2 8. It is lately found in the land of them that live pleasantly  Rarò invenitur in terrâ suaviter viventium. Wherefore holy Saint Bernard upon the rich man's being cast into flames, and the reason being given him, that he had received good things in this life, infers from thence, That the blessing of suffering must be greater in this world, then that of fruitions; and argueth it thus, That the Divine judgement did not cast Man out of the garden of pleasure, to allow him by humane invention to contrive another Paradise for himself, out of the earth, but left him with a sentence of being borne to labour; and so if he decline travail and pains, as he avoideth what he was borne to in this world, so he shall be excluded from what he was designed to in the next. In which consideration, S. Gregory saith, A man who passeth carelessly on, crowned with roses through this life, is like a Prisoner carried through pleasant fields, and delightful gardens, who being amused with the agreeable objects in his passage, forgets what he is, and whither he is going. So dangerous a conveyance is worldly felicity, as the Devil dares trust that, even alone, without any provocation, but even plenty itself to bring us to him. For the adherence to the commodities of the earth, quickly raiseth such a damp and indevotion in our spirits, as there needs no crying sins to mend our pace. This very stillness, stupefaction, and spirituasi Lethargy which we sleep ourselves into, in the love of this world, is one of the safest ways the Devil can wish us into. We may therefore fitly say of the state of many men's prosperities, that which S. Basil said elegantly upon the clearness of the sky in a great drought producing a famine, that It was a sad serenity, in which the very fairness and purity was a punishment. So the smooth, and undisturbed felicity of many fortunes, proveth an unhappy calm, occasioning a great sterility in all spiritual productions. Our love to Christ thrives best, in such a mould as his to us was planted in; which we know was an abundance of all sorts of passions; and such a soil is so much more proper for our faith and charity to prosper in, as the same temptations which master us in felicity, are defeated by us in adversity; as S. Gregory noteth in Jobs trial, saying, that Man who was overthrown in Paradise, overcame upon a dunghill; there the Serpent overcame him by a woman, here he vanquisheth both the Serpent and the woman.  
So as we may say, That sufferings seem to render even our decayed nature, stronger than felicity could preserve our entire. For Adam was ruined by the same attaques, which Job repulsed. Scarce any thing can endear the virtue of affliction, or raise the obnoxiousness of prosperity above this instance. And surely, although there were not so much facilitation towards our being perverted in temporal happiness, yet methinks this defect which is so notorious in it, should discredit the affectation thereof; for it is evident, that we cannot have so good a trial of our loves to God, whilst we are under his sensible caresses, as under his severe corrections. We see Satan had so much colour for that argument, that in prosperity there can be no trial whether a man love God or no, as he presseth it even to God himself in Jobs case, ask, Doth Job fear God for nought? alleging that God's benefits did not admit of a total proba●tion of that servant whom God himself commendeth. Therefore he putteth God to the trial and examination of his love, when it hath nothing but pure duty, and no temporal interest to feed it; and it seemeth God allowed this as a good argument, when he changed his condition into that which was the properest for the examination of his love, and might prove an irrefragable evincement of his sanctity. For a patiented acquiescence, and a faithful praising God in affliction, doth not only silence even Satan himself in his office of accuser, but setteth us so much out of his command, as to render us his impeachers and accusers before the throne of God. For there cannot be a higher charge against his contumacy in his beatitude, than man's returning praises to God in his miseries.  
You may see then that Affliction doth not only furnish us with arms defensive against our enemy, but also ministereth offensive arms in God's cause against his Rebel: for nothing woundeth Lucifer deeper with this point of his ingratitude, than a Lazarus playing the Angel, fing God's praises in all his sores and provocations. And it seems very equitable, that they who are to possess the estates of the delinquent Angels, should serve God thus here on earth, against them whose confiscations are assigned to them. And in order to this, we may observe, how God hath always employed his dearest followers in this service, to shame and confound the Devils first impatient pride, by their equanimity and calmness of Spirit in all their pressures and desolations, making the praises of the scourger, as S. Augustine saith, the plaster of their wounds. For which cause, holy judith, when she undertaketh to comfort her brethren in a desperate extremity, suggesteth to the Priests, to represent to the people, that their fathers had always been tempted, to try whether they did sincerely love God; and biddeth them remember how Abraham was ●●proved by many temptations, and so made the friend of God; and Isaac, Jacob and Moses passed the same way of probation. And concludeth with this enforcement of the virtue of afflictions, 
Judith 8.2. All that have pleased God through many tribulations have passed faithful.  Omnes qui placuerunt Deo per multas tribulationes transiverunt fideles.  
We may remark also that among all the Patriarches and Prophets, who had the honour to be types of Christ, we find but one exempted out of the list of his precursors in divers passions, and afflictions; and Solomon only passing through the smooth delicious alleys of this world, fell so dangerously, as the holy Ghost hath not set him up again before us; whereby we may conclude, that God intended the leaving of Solomon's case undecided, as a terrible admonition to us, of the perilous estate of prosperity, since so great an organ of the holy Ghost, is not manifestly restored to his place, where all the rest are evidently fixed, following the suffering Lamb, whom they had the honour to precede, and to prefigure. So as although we may hope well of Solomon, we may safely condemn continual prosperity, as a formidable seducer, since worldly felicity leaveth us in suspense of the salvation of Solomon, and affliction giveth us great hopes of the reconciliation of Manasses.  
And it may well be observed, that the first Angel which is recorded in scripture to have been sent to the earth, was upon the occasion of an extreme distress; 
Gen. 16.12.  which was to Agar flying in the desert; and the Angel giveth this testimony of the reason of his mission, Because the Lord had heard the voice of her affliction; so as Agars being in misery, bringeth her to be honoured by the ministry of an Angel, sooner than Sara's being mistress, and in authority; and so distress had quickly obtained pardon for undutifulness. Wherefore all they who have faults to expiate, may be glad to have sufferings for intercessors, for they speak in virtue of that blood, which calls for better things then that of Abel; they mediate reconciliation, and deprecate revenge. And therefore we find God vouchsafe to say, Cum ipso sum in tribulatione; 
I am with him in tribulation.  and his presence is often so manifested in tribulation, as they who had scarce heard of him before, come to know him, and acknowledge him in that appearance. Which made S. Bernard to say very elegantly, 
D●n. 3.93.  that God appeared so visibly in the tribulation of his children in the fiery furnace, that even the heathens themselves confessed he was there, affirming that the fourth was like the Son of God: so that it seems, God will permit the devil to pass for a God, with them who are in the power and dominion of the world, rather than reveal himself to that presumption, and chooseth to enlighten the blind of Babylon, only by the fire of affliction. And for that end, he preferred the furnace, for his Temple to appear in, before all the sumptuous edifices of Babylon. In like manner, when God resolved to show himself to Nabuchodonosar, he would not vouchsafe to come into his palaces, but carried him out into the fields, and laid him as low as the grass that fed him, and then in this posture of being nearer a beast then a King, vouchsafed to visit him, to show him how much more he esteemed misery and confusion, then temporal glory and magnificence. And thus we see, how man in honour, becomes like the beast that perisheth; and man in dishonour, being reduced even to the likeness of a beast, recovereth and restoreth the image of God in himself, which his other condition had almost obliterated.  
Nay affliction is so proper to finish and perfect God's image in us, as Daniel had that given him for an improvement of his sanctity, which he had by order from God, prescribed Nabuchodonosar for expiation of his impiety. He for having destroyed those Idols, which the other had adored, was sent among the beasts for a reward; the lion's den is given as it were for a recompense of his service, against both the spiritual, and material dragon; and devout Toby was brought into darkness and the shadow of death, 
Tob. 12.14  as a gratification of all his pious familiarities with the dead; for when the Angel remembreth him of his own merits in these offices, he telleth him, that Because he was acceptable to God, is was necessary that tentation should prove him. So as the tribulation of this world, seems the penny conditioned for in this life, and due as wages to the travail in God's service. And indeed the weight, and heat of this day, or rather moment of this life, may well be accounted our best salary in it, since the Apostle telleth us, that Light and momentary tribulation worketh in us exceedingly above measure an eternal weight of glory; 
2 Cor. 4.17.  and so God who knoweth how the crowns are to be given out by weight, according to that we bring in of crosses, marked by God's stamp upon them, he may well load us here, in that order, to the elevating of us, by his justice, as well as his mercy.  
Whereupon all the Saints, the liker they grow to the image of Christ under God's hand, discern the cleerlyer this design of God, and so rejoice in their tribulations, proportionately to the light they receive, by these openings of their own mud walls, wherein they are immured; and so by Gods making as it were through lights in their bodies, the soul comes to have the clearer prospect on all sides of her, whereby she discerneth, that God in this work of breaking down the matter of carnal appetites, which are like walls about us, removeth but dust, and bringeth in light; and therefore we see, how the Martyrs rejoice while these windows, as I may say, & through lights, were beating out in their bodies; while they were made transparent with wounds, the soul had the more light given her; and so they looked upon their enemies, as set a-work to break down their prison, always paying them their prayers for their labour. And we need not look back into story, for such lights as these, whereby to read the joy of sufferings, for I may say of these examples, as Moses said of his precepts, They are not beyond the sea, 
Deut. 30.12.  that you may pretend, and say, which of us can pass over the sea, and bring them to us, that we may fulfil them in work? For such patterns are near you in your own sight; you need not travel into the remote regions of Antiquity, for such precedents of hearts rejoicing, while these doors of their breasts are breaking open, to set them at liberty. God hath provided for you the lights of the Primitive times, as well as he hath permitted you to remain long in the same necessities. You can therefore have no excuse in being ignorant of the good of sufferings, since you have both the matter abundantly among you, and the manner excellently patternd out before your eyes.  
It is well said of one, that we may wonder that all the stones under the feet of the reprobate, do not turn into roses, for some solace to them now, in regard of what they are to suffer. And therefore we need not wonder, if all things under the feet of the elect, do turn into thorns to punish them for their sins, since their transitory pains augment so much their eternal blessedness. Well then, and fitly may I say unto you in this your state of trial, 
2 Cor. 13.5  Know you not yourselves, that Christ Jesus is in you, unless perhaps you be reprobate? For now you have that work in hand, of interpretation of the word of God, the word of the Cross, wherein you yourselves are best expositors, whether you find in your hearts, an humble understanding of the will of God upon you in these sift and cribrations, unto which the enemy hath now subjected you. If you find this humble and patiented conformity, you may rightly conclude you have the right sense of the word of the Cross.  
Me thinks I may say now to you, that you have as a mercy afforded to your offences, your book given you, and if you can read in it, your present burn in the hands are far from being brands of infamy, 
The stigmats of Christ.  they are rather stigmata Christi, which are the characters in which your names are written in the Book of Life. Your chief study therefore now must be, to read currently God's hand in this your book which you are put unto, and by a right understanding of God's mercy in this volume of your crosses, you make it such an one as was given to Ezechiel, 
Ezek. 3.3.  you may find it even as honey in your mouth. Upon this ground, Saint Augustine was wont often to ask his heart this question, Is the word of the Cross foolishness to thee? 
1 Cor. 1.18.  He knew, that was the infallible trial of this adherence to the will of God, the accounting the Cross the wisdom of God, and consequently the best mark of his predestination. There may be many glorious external shows of piety and sanctity (which may be like the gift of Tongue's Saint Paul speaketh of, 
1 Cor. 14.14.  where the Spirit prayeth, but the understanding is without fruit) that may draw the eyes of the world upon the appearancies, but not the eyes of God upon the interior disposition; but a patiented, and virtuous exemplarity in suffering is like prophesying in a known tongue, it both bettereth ourselves, and edifyeth the Church of God. Wherefore I may properly desire you, now you are, 
Ver. 4. 1 Cor. 14.39. Therefore brethren be earnest to Prophecy.  as I may say, prohibited to speak with Tongues, (as this answereth to a public exhibition of your devotions) Itaque fratres amulamini prophetare, that is, to endeavour to edify the Church of God by your patience, longanimity, and suavity in the holy Ghost.  
God's mercies are so much above all his works, that even all his justices in this life are mercies, as we may perceive in many things which to us seem severities, and are truly indulgencies in God's Order; as many times when he findeth a dumb, and a deaf soul, so possessed by the world, as he will neither hear, nor answer to the ordinary voice of God's Ministers, than God in mercy layeth violent hands upon him, and, as I may say, puts his fingers into his ears, 
Mar. 7.33.  as Christ did to the man in this case, as it were to force them open by some stronger operation than the ordinary ministry of his Church's medicines and applications, and in this case, the fire God applieth, is not rigour, but medicinal compassion.  
Besides, there is commonly a special divine authority in Tribulation, wherein the holy Ghost breathes himself out more efficaciously then by the Prophets, or by the holy Scriptures: for we often resist the Word of God, and slight the admonition of the Fathers, and Doctors of the Church, when afflictions though they speak in a sharper, and more unpleasant stile to us, yet take our ears, and bring us to answer more promptly, speak Lord, for thy servant heareth.  
Whereupon the Psalmist expresseth thus both the nature of man, and the virtue of tribulation, 
Psal. 15.4. Their infirmities were multiplied, afterward they made haste.  Multiplicatae sunt infirmitates corum, postea acceler averunt. So as God oftentimes lameth us, to make us mend our pace towards him; & the maims given us by God's hand, prove like jacob's lameness, which made him the fit for his journey. And as it hath been aptly accommodated to the credit of affliction, that Jacob was flying, and sunk with labour to the earth, with his head upon the stones, when God first appeared unto him, and set his soul upon that ladder which reached to heaven, while his body lay prostrate upon the earth, so we may well add this, that as soon as we wake out of the sleep which the pleasures of our senses cast us into, we shall confess concerning crosses, and tribulations, as Jacob did after his dream, Verè dominus est in loco isto, 
Gen 28.16 Indeed our Lord is in this place, & I knew it not.  & ego nesciebam. For though we tremble at first, and find the place terrible, yet we may truly say, Non est hic aliud nisi domus Dei, & porta coeli, 
17 This is no other but the house of God, & the gate of heaven.  for the holy spirit seemeth to set this inscription (of the gate of heaven) upon tribulation, advising us, that by many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdom of heaven.  
I have presented you with this draught of your own states, that you may see, you are now in the elements of the Saints of both Testaments. Wherefore the Apostle telleth the Christians in your conditions, Behold, 
Act. 14.21  now is the time acceptable, now is the day of salvation. But you must remember also, what Christ said to those that are in this day. 
2 Cor. 6.2.  Work while you have light, lest the night overtake you. For the day itself will but give you light, not legs to carry you on your journey. You must not lie down under your burdens, as if afflictions were vessels you had under you, which will carry you on though you walk backward and forward in them, between murmur, desire of revenge, and some intervals of conformity and resignation to God's pleasure. This tossing, and estuation of spirit is a leak may endanger you, if it be not stopped. Necessarily therefore I must often rememorate this unto you, that if you have faith to believe crosses to be the treasures of Christ, you must negotiate with the talents you are trusted with; for if you bury them in enmities, maledictions of your enemies, repine, and diffidences of God's providence, you will give so ill an account, as you may chance after all your sufferings, to be remitted thither for your rewards, where affliction produceth nothing but curses and desperations. For it may be fitly said of Tribulations, They are the good odour of Christ, 
2 Cor. 1.  but to some the odour of death unto death, but to others the odour of life unto life. Of which party that you may prove, you must act this lesson of Saint Paul, 
Colos. 1.11.2.  to walk worthy of God in all patience and longanimity with joy, giving thanks to God and the Father who hath made us worthy unto the lot of the Saints in light.   

CHAP. VIII. Answers and Resolutions to some subtle Temptations.  
AFter the chief Priests, Scribes, 
Mar. 12.  and Elders had laid before Christ Jesus all the stones of offence and scandal their wits could pick out of the Law, or the Prophets, all which he converted into touchstones of his wisdom and humility, and so rendered all these trials, attests of his purity and sincerity in these excellent graces; then they excogitated a more subtle temptation for him; which was, to tempt him by his own perfections. For than they sent to him some of the Pharisees, 
Ibid. 12.  and of the Herodians, who were to work upon his tenderness, and compassion of the public, to ensnare him by his benignity, and charity to others; and to that purpose they moved him in a point of commiseration to his Country, ask him with a Preface of his praises, whether they might not ease themselves of the public tribute? And this they thought a likely way to ensnare his goodness, when all their other projects could not infirm his virtue: In like manner our subtlest enemy may have found many of you answering, and corresponding faithfully in all his examinations of you, in your own particular sorrows, losses, and distresses, and finding you thus armed in your own persons with JOB's Dominus dedit, 
job. 1.21. Our Lord gave, and our Lord hath taken away.  Dominus abstulit, he is very likely to attempt you by your own graces of piety, and tenderness of others, and devotion to your Country's redemption from error, or a present apprehension of a total extirpation of those few seeds are still dispersedly left in it of Catholic Religion. And this tentation may well be presented you with praises of your own virtues, and pressed more upon your devotion, as a solicitude properly affected to the love of your Religion. This is so fine, and soft an insinuation of motions to disquiet and discordance from God's order, as you may very easily be slid into it, upon this so smooth, and fair suggestion thereof, as a practice of virtuous duty. I shall therefore endeavour to detect unto you the danger of this so subtle illaqueation, and insnarement, in this net may be made of your own pieties. For when Satan stands among the sons of God, he is in the most dangerous position for the children of men, that is, when in the shape of some virtue he introduceth a temptation.  
First then we must lay this for groundwork of all our peace of spirit, a firm immovable persuasion of the divine providence in all occurrencies. This rock the devil doth not attempt to batter in the minds of sober, and pious persons, but worketh to undermine it by arguments, and consequences. When any thing occurreth incongruent to our reason, concerning the government of such affairs as seem properly to appertain to God's interest, as the miscarriage, and adversity of God's cause and his Church's periclitation, in these advantages the serpent hath over our weak and dim power of reasoning, he always enforceth this subtlety upon us, That God's hand cannot be in matters so opposite to his goodness. To which our faith answereth easily enough, when it is awake; but when our minds are in that state the Psalmist confesseth even his to have been reduced unto, 
Psal. 118 28. My soul hath slumberd for tediousness.  of Dormitavit anima mea prae taedio, when our spirits are grown drowsy and heavy under the burden of their encumbrances, than he presseth this point upon us, when the vivacity of our faith is a little relaxed; 
Psal. 72. But my feet were almost moved, my steps almost slipped seeing the peace of sinners.  and by watching this opportunity we know the tempter hath shaken even the greatest Saints, as we know David himself avoweth in Mei autem penè moti sunt pedes, penè effusi sunt gressus meì, pacem peccatorum videns. So as this is a temptation to be precautioned by the best advices can be provided. For what the enemy aimeth at in the first place, is not to subvert directly our faith, but to supplant our peace, and quiet of spirit; and when he hath raised this mist in our discoursing faculty, than all the images are set before us, seem to have fare different proportions from the realities themselves.  
One of the most safe admonitions therefore is to watch upon our proneness to passion, either in grief, anger, or enmity; for an intemperance in any of these, upon the several occasions which respect each of them, doth first cloud that serenity of mind, which should keep the light of God's providence clear to our apprehension, and then insensibly we sink into chagrins and dissavours of God's present judgements. Therefore let us always check the first motions to any excess of sorrow, though the occasion be never so legitimate as even for the persecution of the Church; in that case, we must seek to repress any immoderate resentment of it, though the colour seem such, as admits of no overdoing in it; yet all extremities, even of zeal in this exigence, weaken and enfeeble our Reason, and so leave us worse armed against our opponent, who always seeketh to deduce some reason of repining, and disrespect to God's order, out of this argument of God's unconcernment in the safety of his children. Therefore in all provocations to grief, we must attend the preserving of our spirits as little overcast by sadness as we possibly can, for in this obscurity the enemy soweth what we feel growing up before we see it cast into us. For which cause, let this be a general receipt for all emergencies in matter of disconsolation, to oppose studiously the first motions towards any inordinate sorrow or resentment.  
That I may then give you some particular satisfaction in this case of yours, which may seem so devout a disquiet, in order to the Church's sufferings, I must desire you to lay this in your minds as a deep and  foundation, That the verity of the Church is not questioned by the vicissitude of states into which she is translated. You may consider that your faith telleth you, the roots of the Church are growing in a rock, and are watered, and kept alive by a supernatural irrigation, with the dew of heaven; so as no storm can loosen them, nor no heat penetrate so far as to offend them. The particular branches of this stem may whither, or be removed according to the intemperance of the places they are planted in, as we see that many single shafts and bodies of particular Churches, which are but sprigs in respect of the Universal, are now eradicated even in the first ground they were planted, as we see in the desolation and barrenness of Mount Zion itself, and the land of Canaan, which we may call the garden of Eden, where the tree of life first sprang up, and where the Church seemed to all humane reason, rooted so deep, as nothing but the dissolution of the world could evert it, and yet we see it so extirpated out of that place, as there are only some few fruits (of those roots which S. Peter left fixed at Rome) now visible in that Country, which are, as we may say, gathered in these parts, and transported thither. For most of the Christian Religion now exercised in the holy Land, is but in the societies of some few of the Religious Orders of the Church of Rome, which are but as it were granaries of the bread of life, not seminaries, or fields, in which there is a natural provision for a succession of Christianity, being there are few, or almost no secular families of Christians in the Country. And on the other side of the Globe, in the West Indies, the Antipodes to the Holy Land, being then the patrimony of the Prince of darkness: those parts which sat so long in darkness, and the shadow of death, have now seen the great light, and have it shining on a candlestick, while Jerusalem itself sits mourning in darkness. These are the inextricable folds wherein God wraps up his providence, 
The searcher into majesty shall be oppressed by glory.  which they who will attempt to deplicate by their reason, shall find the verification of Scrutator majestatis opprimetur à gloriâ.  
Let this then be our rest, (to keep us either from sinking into diffidence of God's vigilancy over us, or from sliding into a curious inquisition into his order of conducting us) the concluding, That God is wiser, juster, and more merciful than we can imagine; and remaining assured of our being incorporated in the true Church, we may answer all our perplexities concerning it, that God hath obliged himself to conserve and propagate it; which he must needs perform better than we can design. And in this conclusion let us calm all our anxieties, taking this result of the Psalmist as an opiate to alloy the fames of all our distempers, 
Psal. 118.52 I have b●n mindful of thy judgements from everlasting, O Lord, and was comforted.  Memor fui judicio rum tuorum à saeculo Domine, & consolatus sum.  
In cases of public concernments, wherein the acts of Providence are irregular according to our known Laws of God's justice, the very unintelligiblenesse of the order of such events, speaks plain enough to us, God's meaning to address these hand-writings to our faith, not to our reason, and we must receive them with this admiration of the Psalmist, 
Psal. 91. Thy cogitations are made very profound, O Lord.  Nimis profunda facta sunt cogitatioms tuae Domine! The thunder, and lightning of Mount Sinai, was not set out to be studied by the natural reason of Meteors. The words of the tables were directed to their understandings to conceive the equity of them, but the forbidding the approach of any beast near the mountain, was left as a mystery of which the people were not to argue the justice. And we are yet but in a little more elevated state of illumination, wherein our reason carrieth us to the curtains of the tabernacle, our faith is to pass into the veil, and there to reverence that cloud, wherein the divine providence resideth, whereof the particular acts, are very often almost as high mysteries, 
Psal 65.5. Come and see the works of God, terrible in counsels over the sons of men.  as any our religion imposeth on our faith, whereunto the Psalmist summons only our admiration, with Venite, & videte opera Dei, terribilis in Consiliis super filiis hominum. And for this reason, when God showeth the Prophet Ezechiel an heap of dried bones, and asked him if he thought those bones could return to life, he answered wisely, Lord thou knowest; 
Ezek. 37.  though such a reanimation seemed never so improbable to him, yet he suspended his conclusion, and referred it to God's design, and providence, knowing Gods will and his power to be equally omnipotent.  
And this figure of the deliverance of the children of Israel from their captivity, may afford an apposite instruction for your present conditions; for though Catholic religion seem in England now, but a dead carcase, reduced to arifyed and dried bones, yet when your pious solicitudes question your reason, whether it can conceive how these exsiccated and macerated bones can be revived? your faith must answer as the Prophet did, Our Lord knoweth; this restauration is as easy to him, as impossible to us; and though we cannot prescribe a time, yet we may safely persuade every one to be confident, that in God's fullness of time this reanimation is designed. So that I may without presumption, repeat to you this promise of the Prophet, 
Ezek. 37.5  Thus saith the Lord to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live, I will lay sinews on you, and make flesh grow upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath into you that you may live, and you shall know that I am the Lord. This I am sure is proper at least for a Prayer, which you are all obliged to make; the answer whereof we must expect with fidelity, and it may be your children may gather the fruits of the prayers you plant now for them, more likely than yourselves. But we must not abate of our fervour, by the little appearance we see of an answer to our Petition, for as S. Augustine tells us, It is more grace to pray resignedly, then to be heard presently. It is no great matter to be heard, saith he, the Devils were heard when they were sent into the swine, and Satan obtained Jobs affliction. Set not therefore your hearts upon any thing so much, as upon God's pleasure, to whom all the sequence of time, is but as a present moment to us; so as all things happen in this appointed time, which cannot always concur with ours; therefore I beseech you be not too urgent with Usque quo Domine? 
How long O Lord?  even in the Church's behalf, to such a degree as may savour of impatience, & haste to be served, for that always discredits the suitor to God, and doth not at all advance the suit. Be resolved then, I beseech you, to move God with your affiance, and reference of yourselves to his time, and draw up this answer for all your charges in these times, 
Psa. 18.42 I shall answer a word to them that upbraid me, because I have hoped in thy words.  Respondebo exprobrantibus mihi verbum, quiae speravi in sermonibus tuis.  
There is one particular consolation I may fitly suggest to you, in order to your hoping for God's mercy to the distressed Church of our Nation, which is, that no other Christians have the blood of Martyrs offered by the hands of their brothers to intercede and mediate for mercy to their nation; and though in some respects there be much of the blood of Abel in them, as they are acts of the hands of brothers, yet in order to the interceding for the preservation, and advance of Catholic Religion, their blood speaks in the same voice 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 own comforts in your necessities, but even for the necessities of your persecutors, whose wants are far more important than yours. Therefore in all your private trepidations respecting yourselves, and in this public earthquake referring to your Religion, 
Heb. 20.23  fix yourselves upon this centre of the Apostle, Let us hold the confession of your hope undeclining, (for he is faithful 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 fears within, God who comforts the humble shall comfort you.  
Accept this therefore I beseech you as a provisional advice, against the yielding to any violent melancholy, even upon the most pious occasions, for that motion is always to be suspected, that proposeth discomposure to your spirits, upon any warrant; for at the best it is but God's hand counterfeited, by him who transfigureth himself easily into an Angel of light; And when we admit a dejection & consternation upon any incitement, 
Psal. 4.18. In peace in the selfsame will I sleep and rest, because thou Lord hast singularly settled me in hope.  the devil hath his matter softened to his hand at least, to work upon. So that we must in such temptations repair to David's 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 calm of spirit in all public calamities, and private vexations, imports so dead a stillness, 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 ourselves are subjected?  
To this I can readily answer, that I do not propose this Stociall apathy, or insensibleness, 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 (showered from heaven, upon the ocean of this salt water, with which our earth is surrounded) were defigned to sweeten, and sanctify those waters, by the effusion of Christ's Communion, into such expressions of our compatency, and sympathy with our brother. So that tears may, upon many occasions, savour more of the grace of the second Adam, then of the nature of the first. And for that cause we are counselled by the Apostle To weep with them that weep; 
Rom. 12 15  for our eyes do as it were afford currents, which carry our charities easilyer to their effects, than any other conveyances, as they sooner infuse a credit to our affections, than 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 impressed upon it, which is our charity, and so our tears are taken by our neighbours as seals of our fraternal dilection.  
With good reason then in public exigencies, and in private occasions of just lamentations, such sensible expressions of our consociation, and concernment in the cause, are often requisite, for the efficacy of our charity addressed to others. For as Saint Gregory saith, No body can consolate a mourner that doth not show some concerdancy  his mind; and our heart must be first softened, that it may be congruous to the intendred heart of the afflicted, and thus fasten itself to the necessity it is to work upon. Iron is best conjoined to Iron if they be both melted together in one fire. The appearance then of this sympathy is often manifestly necessary for the rendering our offices of charity beneficial. Wherefore S. Paul doth often leave the print of his tears upon his epistles, as the best seals of his cordial dilection. And those passions of grief, and fear which Christ was pleased voluntarily to raise in the inferior part of his mind (which passions yet never went higher than his reason aimed them) were all intended, to consolate us in our passions, to qualify and mitigate our sense of the infirmity of ours, and to propose to us, an endeavour of moderating the inordinatnesse thereof, that we may according to his council, aim at a similitude of that holiness, to which we cannot project an equality; and his precept importeth no further duty.  
And when Christ confessed, that his soul was troubled, 
Joh. 12.27  he both alloweth and instructeth our troubled souls, which uses S. Augustine doth excellently derive from these words, addressing himself to Christ, and saying, Lord you command my soul to follow, but I see your soul troubled. What foundation shall I seek, if the rock itself 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 infirm, 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 aspire, he doth sympathise 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 own infirmity speaking in me; I minister force that you may run, nor do I retard or excuse you from making haste, but owning your timidity, I level the path of your ascensions.  
Hence is clearly collected, that a moderate grief delivered in decent expressions, and proportioned to the importance of either public or private occasions, is not only always pertinent, but very often meritorious; and S. Gregory showeth, how holy Job complied with both these duties of grieving, and not transgressing; Blessed Job kept his Mind in an excellent equality, that he might neither seem 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 risen, 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 pains; and what is joined, that he adored, manifesteth, that in all his sorrow he did not seek to reclaim or retract the judgement of his senteneer. Therefore he was not moved, lest he might offend by an excess of resentment, nor unmoved lest he might seem to slight the corrector by insensibleness. But as there are two precepts of charity, the love of God, and the love of our neighbour, to the end that he might perform the dilection of his neighbour, he did exhibit mourning, and sorrow for his children; and lest he might trespass against the love of God, even among his sighs he rendered his adoration; and as he fell under the blow, so he adored in the fall, and thus completed the offices of a son of man, and a child of God.  
Surely these words of S. Gregory do fully regulate your case, that you may sorrow and grieve in order to the expressing a sense of your chastisements, and paying the duty of traternall charity. But you must always join the worshipping of God, by an humble and cheerful conformity to his final design●s, even upon the public, as well as upon your personal sentences. And being settled in this disposition, 
Psal. 65. My mouth hath spoken in my tribulation, holocausts with marrow will I offer thee.  you are in that state in which the Psalmists heart was settled, when he said, Locutum est os meum in tribulatione mea, holocausta medullata offeram tibi; wherein is the good odour of all offerings. For in this feeling of our own stripes, and our fellow-feeling of the stripes of others, and our sacrificing of both to the love of God, we fulfil the two precepts of love, which contain discharges of all the rest.  
Now we have admitted sorrow, with such due restrictions as the Apostle alloweth it contributory to salvation, being, 
1 Cor. 7.10  A sorrow according to God, which worketh penance unto salvation: there is another question, very oovious in these conjunctures, which requireth a solid resolution, as, how fare we are obliged to conform our wills to the declared will of God in public judgements, and in cases of the prevalence of injustice, and violence over right and equity? This case is thus regulated in Divinity; We know the Will is, or aught to be carried to the object thereof, according to what is proposed by Reason; and it happeneth often, that the same thing may be diversely considered by Reason; so that which in some respect is good, in another may be ill; therefore when our will desireth any thing, as it hath the nature of good, our desire is licite and rectified; and if another desireth the contrary in the same thing, as it hath in his sense the nature of a good, that opposite Will is also good and approvable. As the will of a Judge is just, when he voteth the death of a Malefactor; and the desire of the wife, or son of the condemned, which opposeth the other, as they apprehend the husband's life under the notion of a good, is also lawful and virtuous. The Judge governeth his will by the common good of Justice, and the wife by the private of her family, and so both their wills are ordered respectively to their several reasons. Now it is the good of the whole Universe, that is primarily in the apprehension and conception of God, who is the Maker, Preserver, and Ruler thereof, whereupon all that he willeth is in order to the common good, which is his own goodness, and that is it which is the good of the Universe: But the nature of the creature is to apprehend good as it is particular, and proportionate to her nature; and there are matters which have the nature of particular goods, which do not hold so in an universal respect, and the same holdeth convertibly: Whereby it comes to pass, that some will is good, desiring a thing in order to a particular good, which God doth not will, because man wisheth according to the light he hath, and his own apprehension, which cannot extend to the discernment how the particular he wisheth, concordeth, or discordeth with the universal benefit which he is obliged to prefer, as far as he is informed only: So that to constitute a rectified will, in the desire of a particular good, the private may be wished materially, but the common and divine good must be intended formally, that is, the thing we desire, may be affected as the matter of it is a good to us; and the end of our affecting it must be as we conceive it good and agreeable to the common order of God upon the world.  
Therefore the will of man is obliged, to be conformable to that of God, in the thing he wisheth, in this respect, of referring it to the fulfilling of the universal design of his Creator: But he is not commanded to annex his will to every particular matter wherein Gods will is declared, because he is not informed how that special course conduceth to the common good; so as he may wish the accomplishment of God's purposes, by those ways, notified to his reason to be most equitable and consonant to the divine goodness. And because we cannot judge how the ruin of a good cause, doth contribute to the common good, we may well descent in that particular martyr, and yet still remain resigned to the Universal Providence. In this order many of the Saints have deprecated even Gods revealed judgements to them, as Abraham in the case of Sodom, and it is evident, and frequent in all the Prophets, when they appeal from God's severity declared, to his mercy which they solicited; & some so vehemently even after many prohibitions, as God is feign to silence them; as Samuel in the case of Saul, and Jeremy in the behalf of the captived people, and many the like material inconformities we find in the Saints. But this kind of discrepancy is better called a Velleity, or wishing that God's order were otherwise, than a dissenting from it: and this incomplete concurrence with the Divine will, is dispensed with in this our imperfect light, which we receive but through a dim glass; and till we come to be above all sense of sorrow, we shall never be exempted from a defective perspection through the causes of all calamities in this world; and so there is no more conformity exacted of us, than there is illumination imparted. The blessed, who see many present acts, and the sequences of the Divine providence, in that light which showeth all satisfaction at first sight, have their wills as entirely united, as their understandings consummately informed; Wherefore if we have a rectifide sense of the defective adherence of our wills to God, even that resentment may be very supplymentall to the deficiency of our present condition.  
It seems clear therefore that in all common calamities, wherein the violations of justice are manifest, our wills may safelier be, as I have explained, unconformable to Gods will declared in those grievances, remaining in a confession of our incapacity, to conceive the reference they have to his glory) than our wills may be concurrent with Gods, moved by the presumption of our understanding, upon the concluding itself rationally satisfied with the causes of such events. For this adherence is upon a worse ground, than the other suspension, in regard it resteth upon Reason more than upon Faith. So they who are conformed to God's 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 marvelous of me, it is made great and I cannot reach to it.  then to God's 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 retrieve 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 premises well weighed, will afford us clearly this conclusion, that in public adversities, and private afflictions, our will may seem to differ from 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 conjoined with the divine will, in the reason of our desiring what we do, that is, when we wish that difference, only, as we conceive it more conducent to God's glory. And so the very rise of our discordancy, is from the stock of a final conformity; 
Jer. 17 4. I am not troubled, and the days of man I have not desired thouknowest.  and in this disposition of our infirm 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 referred to any human projects, but directed to the Vniversail accomplishment of God's orders, 
Psal. 106. The just shall see and shall rejoice, 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 days 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 council, 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 less believed, than 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 Christ's taking but notice of him, had been sufficient security even for the miracle he wanted. May not I then very justly counsel you, to take comfort, and bringing you a more consolatory message, which containeth not only a call, but a contract for your reliefs, the which is specified in this voice of Christ addressed to you, 
Mat. 11.28.  Come ye to me all that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you; take my yoke upon you, and you shall find rest to your souls. If the blind man then cast off his garment, & came leaping to his single call, you may well put off all cover of darkness and disconsolation from your hearts, and come cheerfully not only to this vocation, but to this covenant, which is as a counter-security given you by God, to save you harmless in all your engagements in the three Covenants of sufferance, wherein I have showed you your obligations. For here is rest to your souls passed by contract to you, by the word of Truth itself; & when you are possessed of this peace, and case of your hearts, they shall feel the retrenchment of your worldly accommodations, little more, than our bodies do the abscission of some excrescent portions: For faithful hearts are as little damnified by any such rescinding or diminution of the conveniencies of this life, as bodies by loss of hair. Therefore as the remedy of all, consists in the assecution of this promise of Christ, so the only means of compassing it, is the resorting to him for it, in that manner prescribed by his call, you may all think yourselves nominated in this Proclamation of grace, as you are qualified with the conditions specified, of being in labour and under burdens; and yet you may easily mistake, what loads you are called to bring first to be discharged of; your temporal gravations that lie upon you, may go near to hasten you too much, in your starting forward into this course of relief, without looking out, and laying uppermost that burden 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 brother's detention of his inheritance, and desiring Christ to right him in that oppression; 
Luk. 12.18.  this was the heaviest burden whereof he was sensible, of some unjust sequestration lying upon him. But we know Christ's answer cleareth 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 temporal Judge, made himself 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 temporal damages, find this plea cast out rather then admitted, and their burdens will but grow the heavier, by this earnestness 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 burden we ought first to seek our discharge; for it is one of so strange a nature, as the increase of the weight diminisheth always the feeling and sensibleness of the carrier. And this insensibleness, as it augmenteth, doth likewise aggravate the weight, so as there is a great peril, to leave never so little of this matter, that hideth itself by the same degrees it heightens in us. These qualities are so little sortable to the temporal burdens of crosses and afflictions, as they cannot be conceived to be the grievances we must first complain of. Nothing but sin is to be found countermarked with these notes upon it. That then is the burden you are first advised to bring in to be delivered of; this weight which the world commonly laboureth and sweateth most to charge itself with; and yet it is truly so strangely onerous, as even God and Man Christ Jesus, did sweat blood under the weight thereof, although he carried but the lighter half of it, the pain only, not the pollution. This is then the first oneration, whereof you must intent the demission and deliverance. For they who begin with calling to Christ for alleviation of temporal burdens, or solicit him to transpose their loads upon their enemies, setting these articles of ease and animosity before all the rest in their Petitions, do (me thinks) as if the Leper in the Gospel should have sued to Christ, to have given him clothes to cover him only. For when we have the uncleanness of any foul sin upon us, to intent any thing, before the delivery from that, is but to beg a covering, or palliation of our distress. And we know, temporal commodities do often hid and cloth the leprosy of sin, but seldom contribute to the emundation; and they who lift up their hands in the first place, to draw down vengeance, even from him to whom it belongeth, do (me thinks) as if the rob and wounded Traveller in S. Luke, should have desired the good Samaritan to have followed the thiefs to apprehend them, and deliver them to justice, before he had thought of dressing his own wound; it is but such a preposterous application, to pursue even God's enemies, while we have our own sins crying out, and endangering our souls, and crying for revenge against us, under the same notion we prosecute our enemies.  
We must all than retain this principle, that the first exoneration we must design, is, to be this of the burden of our sins; and when we are delivered from them, our crosses will prove rather our carriages then our burdens; for as death is formidable in this face and aspect of the wages of sin, (and that countenance may justly fright us) but when we look upon it as a debt only, we must pay nature before we can pass to eternal life; in this view, it seemeth rather officious, then offensive to us; in like manner, when our afflictions and crosses are charged upon us as wages of our iniquities, still growing in us, as in the cases of Pharaoh, and Antiochus, than they have an intolerable heaviness in them; but when they are considered but as fees and duties we must pay in our passage through this miserable life, unto a blissful perpetuity, and that all the Saints have paid them in their pilgrimage, than they appear rather serviceable then formidable unto us: So hereupon I may say, that when our sins are heaped and accumulated on our crosses, pressing and holding them upon us, than the charge is unsufferably grievous; but when our sufferings are imposed and charged upon our sins, and that they press our faults so hard upon our consciences, as the pressure of our offences groweth intolerable, and so forceth us to come creeping humbly under our load, to this promise of relief which Christ exhibiteth to all such labourers, and loaded souls, than our affliction proveth an happy surcharge, that hath sunk through our hearts, that other sad portage of our sins, which before peradventure did not disease us, and then the heaviness of our crosses which remaineth, will comparatively with the other we are released of, seem very easy, and portable; as one that should rise from being bedrid with the Palsy, or Sciatica, after he were cured, would find a little charge to carry his blankets upon his back. There is such an analogy, between the weight of sin and of sufferance, as between these two different heavinesses; And sure the Paralitike, who went back charged with his bed upon him, found less heaviness, then when he was carried upon his bed. So when affliction, that we find hath partly contributed to our spiritual rising, and recovering out of our bedrid habits of sin, remaineth upon us, we carry it so lightly, as we handle it rather as a benefit then a burden. Then we find sensibly, the verity of this assertion, of Jugum meum suave est, 
Mat. 11.30 My yoke is sweet and my burden light. Jere. 48.11.  & onus meum leve. When we have found rest for our souls, all other agitations are but (as the Prophet saith) pouring us out from vessel into vessel, to purge us of our dregs, and faeces which we should settle in again it may be, if we were let stand.  
And to evidence this principle that we must first begin our addresses to God with the Prodigals Pater peccavi, before we sue for casting off our rags, and being apparelled with conveniencies, we may consider, how God doth not account himself so much as spoken to by us even in all our clamours, until, 
Jerem. Thren.  as the Prophet saith, the cloud be removed that intercepted our prayer from passing. For David affirmeth this experience, saying, Because I held my peace my bones are as it were waxen old, while I cried all the day. So as you see, all David's clamours are but as dumbness to the ears of God, so long as his sin sleepeth within his breast, though his throat grow hoarse, he doth but as it were strain to cry out under water, while his iniquity like waters are gone over his head. Hereby, we see, that all vociferation while our sins are quiet and tacent in our affections, is no more audible, than silence; and on the contrary we may note that God accounted Moses to have made a loud exclamation, when we find he was silent; his heart being not obstructed with sin, uttered a voice which penetrated the heavens while his tongue had no part in the conveyance of it. 
Exod. 14.  And Moses removed the whole red Sea, more easily with this silence, 
Psal. 3.  than David could draw back those few drops of iniquity, he had drunk in; all the ejaculations of his voice did not pierce the cloud, until his sighs had broken through it, and then after his heart had once struck upon that key of confession of his fin, in this note of I have made my sin known unto thee, and mine iniquity I have not hid, than every whisper of his to God is audible, for we find him professing this also, 
Psal. 55.10. In what day soever I shall invocate thee, lo I have known that thou art my God.  In quacunque die invocavero te, ecce cognovi quia Deus meus es. So as here we see the divers effects of Prayer, while our sins cry the louder for our silencing them, no other vociferation is made but theirs, which we do not utter; & when they have first lifted up their voice, through the organ of our voluntary proclamation of them, and a sorrowful invocation of mercy, than every breathing, and smallest inspiration of our souls in prayer, is a tone loud enough to reach heaven. Then as David avoucheth, we shall find him our God at all hours we seek him, and discern the reasons, why we are then heard, and why we were not before regarded; which are these two David giveth us, of the first he saith, If I have beheld iniquity in my heart, our Lord will not hear; and of this other, in case of having purged this impurity by our penitence, Our Lord is near to all that invocate him in truth, 
Psal. 65.  he will do the will of all them that fear him, and he will hear their prayer, and save them.  
Whereupon we may observe, that the Prophets in all public calamities, did exhort the people in the first place to purify their hearts and their hands, by a discharge of their sins, before they presumed to lift them up to heaven for receipts of temporal degravations. For when the people wonder that their Fasts and Humiliations are not regarded, 
Esay 58.3.  the Evangel call Prophet Esay disabuseth them in that point, and informeth them, why their offerings were so unsavoury, because God smelled their own wills in them, that is the deliverance from those secular pressures that lay upon them, not the demission of those spiritual burdens which were inherent in them. Wherefore the Prophet ordereth them, to begin by dissolving the bands of impiety, and loosening the bundles that over-load. When they have exonerated themselves of those weights which are offensive to God, than their own spiritual lightning and refreshment follows in a due order and procession. God telleth the distressed people by the Prophet Jeremy, 
Jer. 15.9.  If thou wilt separate the precious thing from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth; and when we come to be as God's mouth, there is no fear of our being not heard by him; but while our mouths are liker the feet than the head of the Statue in daniel's Vision, 
Dan. 2.33.  consisting of iron, and clay, and not of gold, that is, while either revenge against our enemies, or reparation in our earthly damages, take up the first places in our prayers, and not the purer ore of charity towards God and our neighbour, this sordid composure of our petitions, doth not answer that separation, which God conditioneth for an admittance to such a nearness as secureth our audiency.  
S. chrysostom remarketh, that the holy Magdalene was the first that came to Christ to seek pardon and grace; others sought health and sensible solaces in their first addresses, but she even in her first choice, elected the best part, and upon her kissing of our Saviour's feet, 
B. Pet●us Dam●anus  one of the Fathers raiseth an excellent instruction, That the two feet of Christ, do mystically signify Mercy and Judgement, both which must be kissed in order, for the fixing upon the one alone, may produce a temerarious security, and on the other single, may suggest a timorous despair. And in conformity to this method, I may propose to you such another in your prayers, to lay them always first at the feet of Christ, before you raise them up to his hands; that is, to direct your requests first to the pursuit of mercy, and remission of your sins, before you commit to them the soliciting of any other solace, or benefit; and when your prayers have ascended by these regular gradations to the hands of Christ, 
1 Ep. S. Joh. 3.22. If our heart do not reprehend us, we have confidence toward God.  having first opened your hearts in a sincere confession of your sins, you may with far more confidence expect the opening of his hands, in answer to your necessities, by this warrant of the beloved Apostle, Si cor no strum non reprehenderit, nos fiduciam habemus ad Deum. This is then the first attention, whereunto we must addict our minds in all emergencies of public or peculiar calamities, to purge our souls by a faithful perquisition of our lives past, and by a profound sorrow for all our faulty actions, or frail omissions; we must first sue for the washing and cleansing of our hearts, before we propose to God the wiping away the tears from our eyes; and in this order we may hope to attain to that safe posture, wherein the Spouse proclaims her security, 
Cant. 8.3.  having Christ's left hand under our head, and his right hand embracing us, that is, by S. Gregory's exposition, to have his left hand holding and sustaining our head, so as to preserve that from growing dizzy or confused in all the agitations and circumvolutions of this world, and his right hand embracing and cherishing our hearts, with the delicious promises of eternal rest and stability.  
This is then the soundest advice I can present you, respecting your readyest consolation, to intent primarily the casting out of every small mote out of that eye, (which our Saviour meaneth, when he saith, 
Luk 11.34.  If it be simple the whole body shall be lightsome) before you sue for the casting off those beams, which may chance to lie heavier upon your carnal eyes, than the other; for sensible afflictions do commonly weigh more in our degenerated nature, then spiritual onerations; and yet there is truly so much difference between these two burdens, as they who are discharged of the malignity of the last, feel little the gravity of the former; and they who remain charged with their sins, and have their sufferings sequestered upon their Petition, are to be feared as sunk into that depth of God's displeasure, where they are nearer stupefaction than degravation; for it may be God taketh off his hand, in the sense he said to the Prophet Esay, Why should I strike you any more? 
Esay 5.  This release is the unhappiest of all impositions. Let none then account themselves gratified by the relaxation of their sensible taxes, while they are conscious of any gross immundity, which the waters o● affliction have but run over, and not removed; for in that case, what is left is the misery, and what is taken off was the mercy misunderstood.  
But though we ought not to recurre to Christ's promise of ease and refection, assigning it first to the redress of our temporal grievances, yet subordinately we may hope for their alleviation. And certainly we shall find, though not an immediate, yet a consequent deliverance from their incommodities, for all weights are easy, or grievous, by the proportions of strength, and ability are found in the bearer, so that to add such a degree of force and capacity as may make a great mass, an easy carriage may be truly said to be a lightning and discharging of the bearer. And in this manner, we are always relaxed in our sufferings, when we are disburthend of our sins; for Christ gives always upon our casting off our crimes, a proportion of strength, commensurate to that weight we are to bear in all sorts of tentations, so as being furnished with this ability, adequate to our charge, we may well be concluded eased, by this extenuation of our burdens; for being thus entered into Christ's yoke, we find that gentle, and our carriage very portable: God doth then give virtue, and vexation concomitantly as the Apostle affirmeth, God is faithful, 
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 sustain. So that I may safely promise in Christ's name, what he did to his Disciples, when they were entering into the lists of persecutions, that all these signs shall follow all those, who do entirely strip and divest themselves of the pressures and encumbrances 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 encircled with the thorns and stings of affliction, they shall not feel any noxious sharpness, or asperity in them, and they shall drink of the cup of sorrow, without any aversion, or nauseousness, 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 than that of Babylon, which we have eased our hearts of. For as the Holy spirit saith, 
Pro. 27.7.  A soul that hungereth taketh all bitterness for sweet, and such souls 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 spiritual onerations, will certainly get this good appetite, which our Saviour calls a blessed hunger, and shall be satisfied with present peace, and tranquillity of spirit, and an hopeful expectation in a future blessedness. The sooner then, and the sharplyer we deplore our sins, 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 penance unto salvation, that is stable. Upon which words S. chrysostom saith excellently, sorrow is given us not to grieve for any thing we cannot remedy, and so it is only a receipt for the cure of sin, for it augmenteth all other evils whereunto it is applied, and recovereth us only out of that extremest of all mischiefs. Therefore sorrow was only made for sin, out of which it was first extracted, and so like a moth corrodeth and consumeth the matter that produced it. And this holy corrosive, is so powerful, as it will eat away not only 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 fear of a little burning in the hand, in the heat of these times, hath chosen rather to stigmatize his heart with the mark of apostasy, let not even such a desperate character, doubt of an effaceing by the virtue of sincere contrition, for as soon as it is rightly applied, the operation is unquestionable. Let not then any such, set Cain's stamp upon this his first brand, for could Judas have applied this corrosive, he needed not have used his cord to suppress the noisome stenches of his conscience. This receipt would have broken his heart so happily, as to have kept his bowels from bursting; for we know that a broken and contrite heart, repairs even all her own breaches. If in these evil days then, there should be any that hath done worse than the disciple, that left his mantle, and fled naked to save himself, for if any to save their clothes, and cover of conveniencyes, should have left Christ, and have joined 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 himself of this unfaithful pusillanimity. No weight that sorrow can bring in, can be too much for him to take off who carrieth 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 Despair seems miserably to vie against the superiority of God's mercy; in this accursed dejection there is this derogating contention, whereas faithful sorrow hath always an obliging confidence. He therefore that cannot find in his heart to give so much as sorrow towards the redemption of his sins, ought not to expect so much as pity even in their eternal 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 sins, 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 own 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 than that of feasting, as reparation of a house is better than 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 ruins of your other have built up for you) may prove such a receptacle of peace, and rest, (when your sins are razed, and demolished) as you shall confess 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 re-edified 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 sins, (which answer to the outward, and first Altar.) From thence the fire of all our zeal 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 do often impetrate more than they solicit, for they obtain not only spiritual acquiescence, but even temporal refreshments. We must remember then, that this holy sorrow is a kind of spiritual Baptism, which is the first gate of the Church triumphant, through which all our requests must pass up to the altar; so that we shall do well to set this inscription of the Psalmist upon this portal of contrition, 
Psal. 117.20. Open ye the gates of justice to me, being entered into them I will confess to our Lord, this is the gate of our Lord, the just shall enter into it.  Aperite mihi portas justitiae, ingressus in eas confitebor Domino, haec porta Domini, justi intrabunt in eam.  
Besides the obligation of this method which I have remonstrated to you, there is a satisfaction resulting thereout, which may be very agreeable to many, who may be tempted to perplex themselves in search and investigation of the causes and irritations that have moved God to these severe examinations of you. For when you recollect your comportments in the former times of more serenity, if in the audit of your consciences, you find these old debts of an abuse, and insensibleness of that calm, you need study no farther the matter of these meteors, which was then exhaled out of the fatness of your earth. Let every one therefore turn over his own records, and consider respectively to his condition, what mundanities, what riots & excesses some can charge themselves withal; others with what avarice, worldly wisdom, and over temporising they can impeach themselves; others of what indevotion, tepidity or scandal they can endict themselves; and they who find themselves standing convicted of these recusancies and inconformities to the Laws and Statutes of Catholic Religion, let them not wonder to see these heavy fines set upon them; for even the lightest of these misdemeanours, deserveth a higher amercement than all your temporalities can be extended unto. And truly I am afraid, upon what I have heard of these latter times, of moderation and indulgence, that it may be too truly said as the Prophet Esay did, 
Esa. 26.15 Thou hast been favourable to the Nation O Lord, thou hast been favourable to the Nation, wast thou glorified?  in no unlike occasion, Indulsisti genti Domine, indulsisti genti nunquid glorificatus es? And if you find yourselves liable to this impeachment, you need inquire no farther for a cause of this judgement. It is a harder task of the two, the giving a reason of Gods trusting you with this second mercy, as I may well term it, of paternal correction, after your having abused your first trust of the indulgence & benignity: so that while you examine your consciences, you may not only find a reason of your present afflictions, but that reason may disclose to you this secret, of their being such graces, as you wanted most. For surely if these infirmities, (which I may well call a spiritual scurvy) were growing upon you, ease, repose, and stillness would have much advanced this disease, and now this revolution, and exercise, (joined with the grace of him that ministers them) is very like to stay, and cure this surreptitious infirmity which creeps in likely into the softness and conveniency of life; and God knoweth when to work upon our nature with Simples, and Benedicta, (as Physicians say) and when to use Minerals. And we find by experience, that this kind of steel is the proper key to this sort of obstructions and oppilations in our minds, of slackness, desidiousnesse, and indevotion. Therefore you may well apprehend, the hardness of your present conditions to be ministered to you, as remedies of some indispositions, breeding by the softer qualities of other times. I beseech you therefore to conceive yourselves in a course of Physic, wherein nothing but your own ill diet can render it inefficacious, as I hope I have before competently remonstrated unto you.  
Upon these reflections I hope in God you will confess with the Psalmist, Lord thou hast not dealt with us according to our iniquities, 
Psal. 102.10.  and not fall under the censure of S. Ambrose upon the persecuted Catholics of his time, who complains, that Vidi multos humiliatos, sed paucos humiles; that he had seen many humiliated, but few made humble. But we confidently trust of you better things, and nearer salvation, although we speak thus, and that you will resolve with S. Paul, 
Phil. 1.19.  That these things shall fall out unto your salvation, by the subministration of the spirit of Jesus Christ; and determining to rectify all your former bend and deflections from the straightness of your Religion, every one of you may make his Catholic Protestation, 
Phil. 1.20.  Now Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death, acknowledging to God this great toleration, how that after your having been unfaithful in the menaging of his indulgencies, he would be pleased to give you occasions, to redeem that forfeited time, by a virtuous correspondency to his present design upon you, in exhibiting patterns of constancy, longanimity, and fervour, in all your tentations, in order to the magnifying of the grace of Christ, appropriated to the Catholic Church; to the doctrines whereof, you may peradventure sooner reconciliate your enemies, by your practical virtues of Patience, meekness, and charity, than we by all our rational evincements. These your Apostolical traditions, of joy in tribulation, longanimity, suavity in the holy Ghost, sincere dilection of enemies, may work upon those, that are never so averse and repugnant to tradition. Therefore as I told you before, you were all become Priests in one respect, so now I may say to you, in this relation, you are now made Doctors to promulgate the Catholic Faith, by the persuasions of your uncontroverted virtues. For me thinks what S. Paul saith, in comparison between the speaking with tongues, and prophesying, may be not unfitly applied to your practical parts, and our speculative reasons towards the conversion of the unlearned, 
1 Cor. 14.27.  and unbelievers: For they who hearing the arguments of the School, may be so uncapable of them, as they may account them madness, when they see all you Catholics humbly and cheerfully accepting all your crosses, rejoicing in your prisons, singing God's praises in the midst of the furnace, wherein not so much as the garments of your minds, your exterior graciousness and composure are tainted by the flames, and that your zeal and charity to your country and your enemies are only the more inflamed, in this your fiery trial; these evidences, whereof the illiterate are capable, may convince them so, as falling on their faces they may adore God, and not their private spirits, pronouncing that God is in you indeed.  
This is truly that sort of practical reason which S. 
1 Pet. 3.15  Peter saith every one should have ready to satisfy those that ask a reason of that hope which is in you; not the arguing & fencing with that sword of the Spirit, which is so hard to wield, even for the strongest hands; and so we see, how unhappily the children of this age cut and wound themselves when they are so bold with it. You are not set by the providence of God, so dangerous a task as to wrestle with all arguments may be set upon you, (the Church hath her proper champions for that exercise) your part is to exhibit demonstrations of the virtue of your faith, by the practices of the verities you receive from a sure hand, (your Catholic Mother the pillar and strength of truth:) That as the Prince of the Apostles adviseth his Disciples in your conditions, 
1 Pet. 8.9.  you may be all of one mind, lovers of fraternity, modest, humble, not rendering evil for evil, nor curse for curse; but contrariwise blessing, that in that which they speak ill of you, they may be confounded which calumniate your good conversation in CHRIST. This practical part of your Religion is that which falls within every one of your capacities; this is the good fight you are to fight, wherein you are not disarmed by being manacled. For me thinks I may say as Seneca did of Seaevola, That he was happier in suffering, than he could have been in acting; as it is a more admirable thing to overcome an enemy by suffering the loss of our hand, then by that of striking with it. So this your suffering estate may prove more successful to you then that desperate design of some few acting many years ago, which no good English Catholics do justify; for by your patience and equanimity, charity for your Country, in all your losses and sufferances, you may perhaps overcome, that is, sweeten and mitigate the fierceness of your enemies, by the most admirable, and most Christian way that can be projected. And thus proving yourselves innocent of those combustions wherewith you are charged, you may become holy incendiaries of true zeal and charity in your Country, by these virtues shining and flaming in your sufferances.  
In the close of this proposition to you, I must recall to your memory, that as by these evidences of your solid virtue you may adorn the doctrine of our Saviour God in all things, so there is no access unto these holy dispositions, but through the entry whereunto I have directed you, of humble, and sincere sorrow, and contrition for your sins, whereof I shall not now need to enlarge any advices, since it is a subject well handled by every body, though the precepts are seldom well observed, even with the help of affliction to enforce them. Therefore I must close up this point, presenting you with part of the three children's prayer, upon the occasion of their trial in Babylon, which may be apposite in many circumstances to your conditions, in regard of the terrors and comminations you are now exposed unto, 
Dan. 3.  Because O Lord we are diminished more than all nations, and are abused in all the land this day for our sins, and there is not at this time nor sacrifice nor oblation, that we may find thy mercy, but in a contrite mind, and spirit of humility let us be received, so let our sacrifice be made in thy sight this day, that is may please thee.   

CHAP. X. Instructions in the duties of fraternal dilection.  
SUpposing you now purified by this Christian ablution of sincere penitence, having had, as the Apostle saith, your hearts aspersed with this cleansing water, I will lead you to the Altar of Christ, to make your oblation of Charity to your brethren, as well as to those who are but your half brothers, being of a divers mother, as to those who have their uterine fraternity with you, as children of the Catholic Church. And because there are two principal articles of your present examination, your behaviour concerning the domestikes of faith, and your discharge of the duties of your faith, relating to the aliens of Israel, I conceive it very pertinent to my subject, the endeavouring by the grace of God, to present you some brief animadversions in these two Christian offices; and your present conditions, facilitate your compliance with the first, as they bring impediments to the correspondency with the later of them; for the association in sufferings, conducteth to the straightening of the bands of Charity, between persons thus combined; but the pressures of afflictions do naturally loosen and relax our minds, in those ties, whereby Religion conjoineth our Charity to our enemies; so that this unfortified part of our nature, requireth a strong guard of Grace to defend it, against our spiritual enemy, when he stormeth it by the injuries of our own brothers, and headeth his fiery darts, with the asperity of our own former friends. When the great Maligner of our nature, bringeth in such enemies for the embraces of our charity, we had need have our breasts well stored with those flames which many waters cannot extinguish, when streams even of our own blood, 
Cant. 8.  are thus poured out in enmities upon them; and it requires surely much of that love, which is stronger than death, to return love to that animosity against us, which is so much stronger than nature in friends, and brothers. In this case, it must needs be specially requisite, that you who are thus assailed, by these most powerful temptations, should be furnished with the armour of God, 
Ephes. 6.  for no less than the shield of the Catholic Faith, to which is coupled the helmet of salvation, can be of proof against these fiery darts, whereof there are now volleys flying against you.  
As touching the first of these two duties, I may say as Saint Paul saith to the Thessalonians in the like occasion, concerning the charity of the fraternity, We have no need to write to you, 
1 Thes. 4.9  for yourselves have learned of God to love one another. The remissness of our vitiated nature in this precept, is commonly quickened, and invigorated by the same degrees, that a common persecution is strained upon us; wherefore I may trust even Vox populi, in these times to preach fervour to you in this practice. It will be then more requisite for me, to insist upon what the Apostle proceedeth to recommend in the same place, That you walk honestly towards them that are without. I shall then only stay to set up some few lights before the shrine of this sort of Charity, referred to your friends, and fellow citizens of the Saints, 
Eph. 2.16.  and domestikes of God, and proceed to the saying of the office more amply of the other part of Charity, the dilection of enemies. But indeed both these duties are but divers branches, which have a continuity and unity in the same shaft, before they part, and break themselves into these two several arms, of acting for friends, and affecting of enemies, and so we cannot touch the one, without some report, and relation to the other. For these two exercises, are but lower and higher boughs, growing upon the same shaft of the charity of God poured forth in our hearts by the holy Ghost which is given us.  
Heaven is the orb of man's joy, and earth the element of his misery, and love is both the conveyance of man to heaven, and the consummation of his joy there; and the holy Ghost contriveth the raising of this our conducting love, very often, out of our consorting in the miseries of this life; for society in suffering here, exalts mutual love, as communion in joys, there, doth heighten reciprocal charity, which is some accession to the bliss of heaven. And in order to this, we see that the bleeding of the mystical body of Christ, hath always offered a kind of spiritual cement to unite and compact the parts thereof. Whereupon the holy Ghost, who hath this commission to produce an union in the mystical 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 firm, 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 believers to have had one heart, 
Act. 4.32.  and one soul; so that here was that similitude accomplished in them, which Christ asked thus of his Father, for the believers 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 soul. 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 lightened, and removed. But in all times we find 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 mutual zeal, and charity towards one another; which unity of spirit is very suitable with the uniformity of your Religion, and no violence can suppress a free exercise of this act thereof. And as this sort of communication to one another's necessities, is a means left you still to exercise your charities, so I hope in God, you are very faithful, and active in this commerce with one another, and that both sorts drive a greater trade of charity in your several faculties then ever.  
Those who have been in the office of giving material alms, do now I hope endeavour to compensate the losses of the poor, 
Pro. 19.17 He dareth to our Lord that hath mercy on the poor, and he will repay him the like.  who are Gods receivers, by proving themselves, the devouter, and better beggars of God, relief for the common distresses, and they who have received much from others upon God's tickets, do I hope now bring them in to God more fervently than ever, showing him what they have received upon his account, and so may be earnest solicitors, for the payment of that Interest, which they do witness to be due upon this contract of the holy Spirit, Faeneratur Domino quí miseretur pauperi, & vicissitudinem suam reddet ei; and thus both parties, may still commerce for their several accommodations, those who have been God's creditors, in the sense aforesaid, may seem more sensible of the suspension of this quality, then of their personal 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 relief, may be so gratefully zealous, as to intent more the bringing into God the accounts due to such ministers of his, as stand now suspended, than their own 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 spiritual good works, may still multiply among you, while the one part of you sorroweth most for the intermission of the practical ministry of them, and the other feeleth more their religious gratitude to their distressed benefactors, than their private grievances. And this kind of weeping, in your widows, and showing 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 likeliest means to obtain their resuscitation, and reinstating in that condition. For as the Wiseman saith, 
It is an easy thing for God to accommodate the poor. James 5.11.  Facile est Dec honestare pauperem, and the Apostle S. James proposeth Jobs temporal resurrection and restauration as an object of comfort to faithful expecters of God's 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 Angelical mediation as is spoken of in Job, 
Job 33.23.  If there shall be an Angel speaking for him, one of thousands to declare man's 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 voice of the poor, bringing in these testimonies of their former equity's for your Jobs, (whom their friends do not know sitting in the ashes of their consumed fortunes) these I say that have not made the eyes of the widow expect, nor have eaten their morsel alone, such bills and evidences brought in to Christ, as debts wherewith he hath charged his person, may perhaps procure Jobs latter days, for such who have passed through his first estate, and are now sitting in his second translation. But in all cases, these notes of the hands of the poor shall be sure assignments for that better and permanent substance which the Apostle saith is their inheritance, 
Heb. 10.  of those who have sustained a great fight of passions, and have had compassion on them that were in bonds, and have taken the spoil of their goods with joy. For which reason this mutual commerce of spiritual charity, is that I now recommend unto you, for the exercise of fraternal dilection; that while you cannot turnish the Altar without the veil, with the fat of your flocks, you may the more largely serve the table of Incense, with these odours of internal charity.  
What I have said in way of direction to these interior acts of charity, is to extenuate the pains of those Tobiasses, who it may be are now reduced, from being almoners to be their own almes-men, having scarce left for their support that which was heretofore their waste, that ran over, and fed their brothers. But I do not intent this as a dispensation to any, who have yet any thing left which they may prudently deny themselves, in contribution to the relief of such, who have no portion of subsistence. For now every one should square his mind, by the new model of these times, and the same clay that the potter hath been pleased to turn from a larger into a lesser vessel, must attend to his present form, and not reflect upon his other measure, and design his charity upon his proportion of self-denial, not upon his present possessions, estimated with the requisites of his former condition: & thus, every one should now be the best husband of the state of poverty, to improve that to the highest rent of merit it may be raised unto, which is to be done by straining somewhat, even upon their incommodities, to minister to the more pressing necessities; so that every one should now tax their own state of suffering, with some voluntary imposition, laying upon it the privation of some part of what is remaining in their power, offering it up to the common necessity; and thus every crumb, given out of your own crumbs, will be no less a Pacifike offering, then heretofore your whole cakes of fine flower covered with oil, which were then (it may be) the crumbs of your tables; and by this ingenious way of managing the fortune of poverty, you may make out of it, the complete benefit of all your former fortunes, for thus, you give still all you ever had to dispose of. For you prove manifestly, that you would still distribute what you had done formerly, when you give what you cannot well spare. So that before God you appear offering more than ever, when you must rob your nature to be able to give any thing. And thus you exercise two singular virtues in one act, Charity, and mortification; and if alms and fasting in their own nature, are so acceptable to God, how much must they be endeared, by this supererogatory circumstance, when we are feign to impose fasting on ourselves to raise alms for others? I humbly therefore recommend this excellent oeconomy to all such, as have yet a stock capable of this improvement. And though this may seem somewhat asperous to nature, to press her thorns farther into her, yet this may be sweetened, when it is considered, that we are members of that head, who trod much harder upon all the thorns he felt then was precisely requisite; when we ponder, how he that was richer than we can conceive, made himself poor, that by his poverty we might be rich, can it seem rigorous, when we are involuntarily made poor, willingly to make ourselves a little poorer, that by this our poverty he may be somewhat more accommodated? For we know, the nakedness we cover, and the hunger we stay, never so little, is all referred to his solacing; and he tastes much better a little that we take out of our own mouths, to give him, then much more of the leave of our satiety. Every cup of cold water taken from our own thirst, and given to his, is turned into the best wine of the feast, by another manner, then that of Cana, for here Christ's receiving it, maketh the conversion, and every one shall see this kind of Charity, acknowledged in that best species, wherein Christ shall own the having received his refreshment.  
Upon this reflection, let none omit this conjuncture of acquiring that merit, with a little, which in the fullness of his fortune he could not have had for a great deal more; for to suffer himself, in the act of giving to others, in other times of plenty, would have cost him much more, and no circumstance can more enrich practical charity, than an intermixture in it of our proper patiency, or self-distressing and incommodation. We know Christ's judgement upon the Widows donative, given out of the abundance of her heart, and the penury of her substance; and God's remuneration to the Widow of Sarepta, who did not consult her own wants, when the Prophet stood in need of part of her substance; and we may from hence derive a good inference, for the esteem of this sort of charity, wherein acting and suffering are conjoined, since God was pleased to be served by it, for the relief of his dearest friend upon earth, Elias, rather than to employ still his own immediate hand, in the first miracle of feeding him in the torrent of Carith. 
2 King. 3.17.  For God could have furnished water there still, as easily as bread and flesh before the torrent was dried, therefore he seemed to have transported Elias expressly, to give an occasion for the acting of this disposition in the Widow of Sarepta, as thinking this virtue worthy the sharing with the miracle of his preserving the Prophet, and so he joined his reward of this charity, in commission with his love to Elias, making the charitable Widow partner in the benefit of this second miracle, of multiplying the flower and the oil for both their sustenances. So as we may say, God's love seemed equally divided here, between this charity of the widow's heart, and the admirable sanctity of the Prophet.  
May I not then safely recommend to you this way, of making the best of your estate of sufferings, by retrenching somewhat that is left in your power, to offer still to God upon his Altars, of your more distressed brothers? And these cares of corn offered up as first fruits, even out of the glean you now live upon, will certainly have the virtue of that grain of wheat, which falling into the earth bringeth forth very much fruit; for though I cannot make you the promise which Elias did to the Widow, yet I may assure you as S. Paul did this kind of fidelity, 
Heb. 6.10.  God is not unjust that he should forget your work and love which you have showed in his name, which have ministered unto the Saints, and do minister. Let every one then that hath any competent stock left whereon to make this assessment, lay some little tax upon it, toward the succour of the common indigency. You have models before you of weekly meals, upon worse occasions, and this surcharge of incommodity rated by your own will hath most affinity with the dispositions of Christ, who endured because he would have it so, as the Apostle saith, Oblatus est quia ipse voluit; So that I may fitly say as Saint Paul did to the Corinthians in this same persuasion, 
2 Cor. 8.  I speak not as commanding, for it may be this solicitude is without the obligatory precept of charity, therefore as he saith in this point, I give council. 
2 Cor. 10. ●  For this is profitable for you who have begun not only to do, but to be willing; whereby it may be inferred, that the willingness in this act of charity, overprizeth the material value of it; wherefore a little now taken by your own wills, even from your necessities, to give to other greater exigencies, out valueth a great deal overflowing from your former replenishments.  
I beseech you then hearken to this advice of the Apostle of growing rich in good works, 
1 Tim. 6.9.  for your present conditions do not disable you, since the abatements in weight are made up in the species of your charities, which are all refined gold, when they are thus drawn out of the fire of your necessities, and so you may now make with a little, as much friendship towards your being received into the eternal Tabernacles, as when you had more of the Mammon of iniquity to make a greater number of friends. And thus while you are freed from all the temptations of riches, you are possessed of their greatest advantages. Old Tobyas saw this light in all his darkness, and poverty, 
Toby. 4.8.  when he counselled his son, As thou shalt be able, so be merciful, if thou have much, give abundantly, if thou have little, study to impart also a little willingly, for thou dost treasure up to thyself a good reward in the day of necessity. And they who think seriously on that great day of necessity, will think little of their momentany incommodities, but in contemplation of providing their part in that day, will easily offer with Saint Peter, 
John 13.  not only their feet, but even their hands, and their heads to the will of their master; they will not only disperse faithfully what they can spare conveniently, but also deny their own wants somewhat of their demands, to supply greater necessities which call to them in the person of one much worthier than themselves, one from whom they have received themselves, and from whom they expect himself for retribution; O, how blessed a thing is charity, that hath no less than God for the subject it worketh upon in time; and no less than the becoming like God for the salary in eternity!   

CHAP. XI. Of the dilection of enemies.  
THis last tincture whereinto we have now infused the mind, is very near the colour of the more perfect dye of Charity, ingrained in the love of enemies. For this disposition exerciseth itself upon our friends, in a respect, wherein they have sometincture of enemies; as th●irs, when the acting of our charity requireth such a crossing and offending ourselves as to strain our own sufferings upon ourselves. Then our fellow sufferers, who demand this selfe-distressing, are in this regard adversaries to our nature, that repugneth against incommodity, whereby our friends in this case, may be said to be proposed to our love with some colour of enemies upon them. So that they who overcome their nature, in this averseness to offend, or incommodate themselves, in preference of the ease of their fellows, are well advanced towards the loving of such direct enemies, as do violently impose sufferings and prejudices upon them. For they are already half way, being arrived at the loving them, who are the occasion of some sufferings, and inconveniences unto them, and so the other moiety is the easilyer reached, which is but the loving all that contribute to their injuries, and offences.  
And such, who are thus rectified in the sense of the matter of sufferings, are well prepared to advantage themselves by all the manners of them; for having their senses exercised, as the Apostle saith, in the discernment of good and evil, they will facilely accommodate themselves to the measure of evils, whereby they are to be exercised, being persuaded that the proportions of spiritual goods, are raised to them by the same degrees, that the difficulties of their performances are heightened against them; so when they are to strain their charity up to the love of all enemies, and maligners, they do not deliberate so much upon the plead, and redargutions of their nature in this case, but resolve upon the express precept of the author, and Judge of nature, who maketh this love of enemies, a necessary concomitancy with all our good offices to friends, to form that complete sum of Charity, which we are to account to him, we own our redemption, paid in this species of Charity to enemies; and if even when we were his enemies Christ reconciled us to God by his dying for us, 
Rom. 5.10.  we may well be reconciled to this kind of love, to which we own our eternal life.  
Considering then our obligation to this sort of love, we may say, our uncomplyance with the love of enemies, falls under the same vice as our unworthiness to friends; for it must needs be an high ingratitude, not to correspond with that quality, whereunto we own our redemption, which is the love of enemies; and it was not severity, but even excessive charity to us, that imposed this love upon us, for it was ordained by Christ rather to assimilate us to himself, then to sentence us to a penalty. And to clear this point to us, he hath set this love under such a relation, as may justly make it agreeable, even to our nature, our enemies being proposed to us as fellow-members of his body, for it is under that notion, he enjoineth us the loving them, not in the respect of their being enemies.  
So that when our reason examineth this injunction, we may find, that this excellent virtue hath not so much as an ill aspect, to avert us from it. For when we look upon Man as the image of God on the one side, or as the copy of Christ on the other, either of these sides of the medal, are lovely objects in Christians, who have this double signature of God upon them, and so cannot be prospects of aversion on either of their sides, for this colour of enemies, is but as it were an over-lay of colly upon a statue, which doth not alter the form, and this ill colouring is cast upon the figure of man, by the hand of the enemy of his nature; the which foul cover we are not required to love, for as men offend and injure one another, they are the devils engines in that respect, not Gods images, and therefore simply as enemies they are not presented to our love, for so they are ills, which God cannot recommend to us, but the vitiating of our nature doth not efface the character of God in it, and that is the object of our love in all men. So what we are obliged to love, hath the impression of good, and amiable upon it, if our passion do not stay upon the superficial deformity, appearing in our enemies, which exterior supervesture is the devil's artifice, not the work of God; therefore our minds looking upward to God, pierce this veil of private injuries, and look through it either on the image of God, or upon the figure of Jesus Christ, in which they see the injuries they themselves have done him born with love; and moreover, they find this charity of suffering patiently the same provocations reflecting to them a new love from Christ; And thus there remains nothing unlovely in his view of enemies.  
After all these considerations, how deplorable is it, that there are so many Christians, of whom we may say in the point of this precept of loving enemies, as the Apostle saith of the Jews, in respect of the Gospel unto this present day, when this commandment is read, 
2 Cor. 3.14.  a veil is put upon their hearts, for a great part of Christians are as studious to find evasions out of the unpleasing sense of this precept, as the Scribes and Doctors of the Law were unfaithful in the explication of the commandment of loving our neighbours as ourselves, and out of which this position of Christ is naturally deduceable. And yet the depraved natures of the Scribes, would extend the love designed by God to all his images, no farther than the twelve Tribes; nay within this circle they made a second circumscription of their loves within the tormes of mutual friendship, teaching that their loves were not obliged to go further, then to a correspondency to them that affected them, and against others that provoke their passions, they let them lose upon them; in this prevaricating sense of God's commandment, 
Mat. 5.4.  our Saviour we know found the people, when he reproacheth them the being misled by this licence apprehended, of hating their enemies; wherein he rectifieth them, commanding them in express terms to love their enemies, and to do good to those that hate them.  
Therefore Christians, who have not this latitude of the term of Neighbour, to shift senses in, (being positively restrained, and coupled as it were in this bond of love with enemies, by a formal command of their Lawgiver.) Since the subject whereon they are to act this charity cannot be mistaken, are very studious, to mitigate to their vicious nature, the displeasing part of this order, by restraining this love in the proportions, whereof, they cannot dispute the adjudgment to the persons, and therefore many are very inquisitive in the kind, and the quantity of love assigned unto enemies; so as now a days they, who are as willing to justify themselves as the Lawyer in the Gospel, 
Luk. 10.30  and cannot ask the Church this question, who are we to love? since the case is so plainly ruled, as the very Samaritans are not excluded, now they put her this case, how much are we to love our enemies, and what exterior testimonies are we obliged to render of our Charity?  
The rule of forgiving enemies, is so much exempted from dispute among Christians, as they dare not claim of God any discharge of their sins, but by the measures of their own compliances in this duty. Our Lord's Prayer, hath set this condition upon all our petitions for mercy, to ask our reconciliation to him only in the same degrees we are conformable to this order, of our releasing the debts of our offenders. You then who sue to God still in the Lord's Prayer, cannot be undisciplined in the preciseness of this duty of forgiving enemies. Those who make little use of this form of prayer, may have more excuse for their pretermitting this observance, and so are likely to give you the more occasion to remember this duty, wherein your faithful discharge will provide you a better condition, than any have that are so truly unhappy, as to furnish you with the matter of this excellent practice, wherein these times afford you the means of exercifing this fidelity in the suptemest degree, which is in the forgiving of friends, and kindred. And in this case holy King David testifieth the difficulty, and consequently meritoriousness of the act, when he faith, If myenemy had spoken ill of me I would verily have born it, but when his guide, and his familiar was the temptation, he professeth, that was the greatest stress of weather his charity could be put to steer her course in: and as this case was figurative in David, so we know it was accomplished by Christ upon the provocation of the man typified in the Psalms, in these words, Of him who had walked in the house of God with consent, and how did Christ behave himself to this man? He received him with a strange benignity, treating him still with the terms of familiarity, and love, 
Mat. 26. Friend wherefore art thou come?  Amice ad quid venisti? That even under that notion of a perfidious friend, which is the most demeriting irritation of our nature, he might exhibit to us a pattern of this perfection, of forgiving injuries.  
But alas! too many are proner to follow David after the letter in this case, than the Son of David after the Spirit, and apt to take these words from David's mouth, 
Psal. 4.16.  Let death come upon them, and let them get down quick into hell, then to draw their copy from Christ's mouth, of meeting with a kiss, and receiving Judas with Friend, Wherefore art thou come? Whereupon it will not be alien from our subject, to clear David of those suspicions of animosity, of which he may be indicted upon the letter of his expressions in this and divers other encounters with his enemies. For in this case, the blind and the lame do often resort to this City of David to take sanctuary in his precedent, for many intemperate asperities in these occasions.  
Wherefore to vindicate David in these imputations, we must understand all the literal imprecations we meet in his mouth, in one of these three manners: First, that his maledictions in some places are by way of prediction of what shall happen to his enemies, not in order of his prosecution against them, 
Psal. 9.18.  as when he saith, Let sinners be turned into hell, here he denounceth as a Prophet that sinners shall have this judgement, and doth not solicit this sentence against them, upon his provocations. In a second manner, they may be conceived as wishes, but so as the desire is not referred to the pain of the persons, but to the justice of the punisher; 
Psa. 57.11  as when he saith, The just shall rejoice when he shall see revenge, he shall wash his hands in the blood of a sinner; this appetency of revenge is in order simply to the honour of God's justice, for God himself doth not delight in the destruction of the wicked, but in the exercise of his justice; Or in a third sense, these wishes and optatives of evils may be assigned, and directed to the removing, and suppressing of the crimes only, that the persons may be preserved, and the faults abolished.  
In one of these three senses, all David's vehement insectations of sinners are to be accepted, and none of them afford any patronage of personal malevolence, or animosity against enemies; not under the pretence even of fight under God's Colours, and wounding them in this quarrel; For David being sincerely comprehended, suggesteth to us no countenance of any private malignity. Saint Augustine, (unto some who it seemeth sought to extenuate the foulness of those sins in themselves, wherein they had truly David's precedent) answereth, that they who are bold to sin, because David did, do that which David did not, that is, sin by precedent, or seek to palliate his offence by example. I may then well say, that they do much more perversely, that wrist, and bend David into a patronage of any rancour, or virulency to his enemies; for they must be guilty of traducing him, as well as of transgressing the precept, when they, upon misconstruction vouch his authority for this licence of maligning enemies. I shall request then every one in all their desires, or prayers, respecting their enemies, to follow this unquestionable precedent of David in Non nobis, 
Psa. 113.9. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory.  Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo ●a gloriam, and so you may glorify God as well in your suffering charitably under your enemies, as in executing God's judgement upon his enemies, when that shall be ordainded you, as the active part of your militancy for him.  
Having given you this key to all the Psalmists imprecations, (which may be said to be the harder cyphers, the plainer they seem in the letter and alphabet of ordinary curses and maledictions) I will cast back upon the two queres, which may perplex many well affected sufferers, which are, What degrees of interior love we are obliged to afford our enemies? Secondly, what actual evidences we are bound to exhibit of this charity?  
To give a solution to the first question, we may consider our love to enemies in three respects; the first is, as they are simply enemies, and we are not called to love them in this regard, for this were rather repugnant than consonant to charity, to love any thing in that respect wherein it is an evil, which the enmity itself of our enemies always may be reputed. The second notion under which we may contemplate them, is, in the nature of men, images of God, or members of Christ, and in this consideration, we are bound in pain of the breach of charity, to love all our enemies, and to serve them with all the offices that appertain to this acception of them, that is, not to exclude our enemies out of those benevolences spiritual or temporal, we afford to the general of our neighbours. The third manner may be, to consider enemies in this respect, of being moved with a particular affection to them, to such a degree as in reference to the love we own God, we attain to surmount and overcome the aversion of our nature, and to be touched with a sensible kindness even to our adversaries.  
This excellent degree of charity is rather of perfection then of express obligation; thus much is only of necessity required, that we prepare our minds, in case our enemy's necessity should demand such an expression of our love, to render them this testimony of it. But the actual conferring of this kind of love upon an enemy, for God's sake, without the point of this necessity, belongeth to perfection, not precisely to the precept of Charity. What we are then absolutely bound unto in the behalf of our enemies, is, to remit entirely all their offences, and violations of us, never to pursue any reprisal or retaliation upon them, in reference to our offences, and to comprise them in all our general charities distributed to our brethren, either in spiritual succours, or material supplies, so as not to exclude any never so ill affected to us, not so much as by our wishes, out of any common benefit, which we dispense to our brethren, either in alms, or in any other accommodations whatsoever. These are the bands we are engaged in to our enemies by precept, which relateth to the interior disposition of our minds to wards them; and so resolveth the first demand.  
The second concerning what exterior ministeries we are obliged to afford our enemies, is partly determined in this discussion of the first. But for more elucidation, we may proceed to deliver it to your further explicated. The particular benefits, and kindnesses then, with which we pleasure friends, as all sorts of solaces, and gratifications, which are the commerces of friendship, are not due to enemies, but in cases where their necessities and exigences require such correspondencies; as when our enemy hungreth or thirsteth, than the feeding and refreshing him is obligatory; and this rule holdeth in all other distresses of our enemies, consisting with the charity we own ourselves. But beyond these cases of necessity, to strain the course of charity to pleasure, and accommodate our enemies, is passing into the upper region of perfection, which indeed is truly evangelical. The other, in respect of this, may be termed but legal performances, remaining in the infirm and barren element of absolute obligation; for the bare defiring not to be overcome by evil, savoureth somewhat of the apprehending Christ but as ansterus home, 
Luke 19.12. An austere man.  and proposing to bring in as much only as will just serve for a discharge; but the industry to overcome evil with good, 
Loved much.  relisheth much of the fervent magdalen's Multùm dilexit; and the forgiveness of many of our injuries to God is assigned thereunto. 
1 Pet. 4.8. Charity covereth the multitude of sins.  For in this exercise of it we may justly say, Charitas operit multitudinem pecatorum.  
Having showed you the measure of the Sanctuary, which you are obliged to complete, I do not mean to countenance the giving no corollary, or surplus, but rather to solicit you all to press down the measure, and give it running over into the bosoms of your enemies, for in the same measure, the charity of God poured forth into your hearts by the holy Ghost, shall be meated to you. This spiritual Manna of charity differeth much from the material, in these properties, that if we do not fill our Gomer, what we have gathered of it is so far from becoming our just proportion, as all we have provided, corrupteth and putrefieth, and all we lay in above the precepted measure multiplieth and bettereth all our provision. For if we render any less than our precise obligation in this duty, all we present is of no acceptation, and what we offer above our debt, augmenteth and sanctifieth all the rest.  
Whereupon I must beseech you to remember, that the love of enemies is not performed after the manner of gathering Manna in the Law, but after that, of managing the talon in the Gospel. For it doth not hold in this charity, 
2 Cor. 8.15  that he who hath much aboundeth not, and he that hath little wanteth not, but this other rule is verified herein, that to every one that hath shall be given, and he shall abound, and from him that hath not, that also which he hath shall be taken from him, since any deficiency in the precepted part of this charity, which I have delivered you, invalidates all the rest of our performances. The least grain of malice to any one enemy, voideth all our acquittances in this obligation; and every grain of love given above measure, proveth an increase of our stock, 
1 Cor. 13.7 Heb 6.9. We confidently trust of you my best beloved better things, and nearer to salvation, although we speak thus.  as it is seed of new grace, which is the root of that excellent charity which suffereth all, believeth all, hopeth all, and sustaineth all.  
Whereupon in order to that charity I own you, I will put on S. Paul's confidence of his Countrymen, and say, Confidimus de vobis dilectissimi meliora, & viciniora saluti tametsi ita loquimur. I will believe that you do play the good husbands in that stock you have now in your hands, of not only forgiving, but loving enemies. For the ruins of your houses, and the destroying of your woods, afford you matter to make these coays of charity, which I hope you heap upon the heads of your enemies, in continual prayers for their resipiscency, and in a preparative disposure of your minds, to render good for evil to the extent of your abilities, unto all their occasions.  
These are the coals of fire, the Apostle saith we should cast upon the heads of our enemies, 
Rom. 13.1  not in order to the aggravation of their faults, as some understand it, but referred sincerely to the kindling of their charity to God, and us. And this virtue blazing among you, is the most probable way to extinguish the flame of your persecution; for this ardent Charity may by the mercy of God fire your neighbour's houses; and if the love of enemies take hold of them, you will partake of the operation of this virtue. And thus you may convince them of your undeserving the name of enemies, by doing them the offices of friends, in this cummunicating to them so excellent a virtue as charity to enemies; and while you thus benefit yourselves, by your oppressions, if you infect your adversaries with Charity, you may introduce into the nation, the good husbanding also of prosperity, which oeconomy hath been little practised hitherto in all her secular advantages.  
For alas! how truly may it be applied to our nation what God reproacheth by the Prophet Esay, 
Isa. 57 12 Because I am holding my peace, and as it were not seeing and thou haft forgotten me.  Quia ego tacens, & quasi non videns, & mei oblita es. Wherefore it will be an enterprise worthy your religion, to endeavour by the fervour of your Charities, to satisfy in some degree for the oblivions of your brethren; and thus in honour of the Catholic doctrine of Satisfaction; you may render it beneficial even to the enemies thereof, while your abundance of Charity in this present time supplieth their want, your virtues defigning to appease God, 
2 Cor. 8.  as much as you fear their violences may incense him against the nation. So that if one part be liable to the exprobration of the Prophet, in forgetting God by the abuse of prosperity, the other may have this claim of the Psalmist to intercede for both, At the voice of the upbraider, 
Psal. 43.17, 18.  and the reproacher, at the face of the enemy, and persecutor, all these things have come upon us, neither have we forgotten thee, and our heart hath not revolted backward.  
When we find our loves then starting, or flying backward in the encounters of our enemies, let us remember this military discipline and rule, That there is less danger in fight, then in flying; for very often we overcome evil, by contending with good against it; and when we fly to evil, to bring that into the field against our enemies, though we master a Foreign, we raise a Domestic enemy, which is the more desperate mischief; for even the success of revenge kindleth those passions in our hearts, which demand 〈◊〉 less their slavery for their pay, malice, anger, and intemperancy, remaining instead of auxiliaries to our enmity, owners of our hearts.  
So that though it were in your power to overcome vice by vice, it were both the nobler and the safer way to vanquish it by virtue, and to employ rather love, which is sure to be faithful, and to preserve an intrinsike peace, then to trust hatred, which is very uncertain of any success in offending others, and always sure of injuring ourselves. Christ Jesus, who had revenge more in his power, than his enemies had their provocations, would not countenance it by taking the least grain of it in all his life. He seemed nearer being angry with his friends, that but proposed any resentment, then with the strangers for their irritations. The sons of thunder were reproached of being strangers to his spirit, more than the Samaritans for being exercisers of his patience. So as in this case, Christ seemeth to have provided a cautionary instruction for us, against any eager promptitude in revenge, under the colour of his quarrel, because the edge of our own nature, is so apt to be set upon the weapons we pretend to whet in his cause, when we are in a sharp prosecution of our enemies. The sword is commonly that of our own spirit, and the sheath only the Word of God, for we cover familiarly our private animosities with God's assignations, when indeed we rather take God for our second in our own differences, than combat sincerely for his designs.  
This is a pravity so cleaving to our nature, as we may note, that Christ's Disciples, who had heard so many inculcations of this design of Christ to suffer, and submit himself to all sorts of offences and violations, did never comprehend his meaning in this matter, and never answered him any thing upon this discourse, but as soon as he did but touch upon what sounded like a purpose of vindication and revenge, 
Luke 22.  as when he had signified to them the approach of his danger, and given them but a little hint of arming themselves, they presently answered as if they had been clear sighted in this proposition, Behold here are two swords. The Cross, and scourges, whereof he had so often acquainted them, did not so much as awake their curiosities, and having never spoken before of any offensive weapons, or instruments he would employ, our nature was as quick in the acceptance at the first notice of this resolution of revenge, as it had been heavy in conceiving the frequent intimations of yielding unto the offences of enemies and persecutors: but we see they understood Christ's meaning as little in this point, as in the other; for Christ came not to follow the vitiated nature of man, that dictateth with the Scribes, 
Mat. 5.  Thou shalt love thy friend, and hate thine enemy; but to make man partaker of the divine nature, the which f●rnishes the just and unjust with the same sun for light, and the same clouds for refreshment; nay he gave his own Son, universally for the whole world, even for those he knew would be so unworthy of him, as not to accept him.  
Whereupon this Son of God, this self-sacrificer for his enemies, hath good right to impose exact duties upon us, in reference to our enemies, the which are more his enemies, in the very act of being ours. So as in this order to us, he showeth the way to this benignity, since his command of these succours for them, manifesteth his indulgence to them, enjoining his friends (those that are conformable to the perfection of his Father) these three good offices for his enemies and theirs, (which are all in order to the reclaiming them, and reducing them to a redamancy of him) Benedicite, benefacite, & orate. These three invitations he appointeth towards the resipiscence of enemies; he will have them invited by our heart, by our mouth, and by our hand, by being beloved with the first, blessed by the second, and benefited by the last. And in all these acts of charity, Christ Jesus hath exhibited his life and his death as a mirror of reflection, to cast back these rays of love upon our hearts, as the Prince of the Apostles expressly intimateth to us, urging our vocation to these duties in this respect, 
1 Pet. 2.21.  because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you may follow his steps, who when he was reviled did not revile, when he suffered he threatened not.  
So as those who think this a hard saying, and go back upon it, are, if they consider it aright, guided by their enemies, as much as they are led aside from the steps of Christ, and are made in effect, followers of their maligners, rather than of their maker. For when they are drawn by the example of those that leave Christ to follow their passions, they seem to credit even those whom they hate, more than Christ whom they pretend to love. These incongruities are found in the passion of hatred, the deferring more to the example of those we profess to disaffect, than even to the pattern of him we pretend to adore.  
Those then who will not follow Christ in these paces of his love to enemies, must know they follow the enemy of their nature, and their own accuser, and he that insisteth upon the footsteps of Christ, avoideth such a leader, as he ought to take this course, if it were for nothing but to fly from such a guide, and taketh such a guide as he ought to follow, though he had no ill to avoid. How much the more than is he obliged to this course, when both these are coupled, to follow the best, and to fly the worst, to incline to God, and to decline Satan? So as by a just hatred to this unalterable enemy, we may well reconcile ourselves to all convertible adversaries.  
For this reason Christ Jesus loved us, not for any good that invited his Charity, but for the goodness whereof our nature was susceptible; which capacity in us, was sufficient for God's innate goodness, to diffuse itself into the loving us; and for this reason, God seemeth to have enjoined all those that we injure and offend, to love us, that our nature might not be withdrawn from evil, by this most powerful attractive of undeserved love, which gives a most natural cause of re-affecting, even to the worst natures, the being first beloved, so undeservedly; in proof whereof, it was said of S. Athanasius, (the great touchstone of this sort of love) that he was Percutientibus adamas, & dissidentibus magnes; by being an adamant to his offenders, he became a loadstone to his dissenters; and thus remaining unmoved with injuries, he removed heresies, copying well his Master, who cured greater wounds by bearing of lesser; to which imitation you may addict all your charities to your enemies.  
But abstracting from this effect, who can account this precept rigorous, when every modest soul may conclude, there is more remitted to him then exacted of him, by this general injunction to all men, to forgive, and love one another, since it were arrogance to believe himself less peccable than others, and so likelier to be sinned against, than himself to sin against his brother. Humility then will easily show us, we have rather a good bargain then an unequal burden in this command of Love your enemies, 
Mat. 7.44  do good to them that hate you, pray for them that persecute you, that you may be children of your Fathern who is in heaven; since you have this mark upon you of your legitimation, the being under the correction of your Father, I beseech you to endeavour the producing this other completing note thereof, the dilection of your brothers.  
There is a memorable precedent of this sort of charity, in S. Gregory Nazianzen being Bishop of Constantinople, who allayed the heat of his Catholic flock in a high provocation, and in a fair conveniency for revenge upon their enemies, the Arrians, who in the time of Valence an Arrian Emperor, had bitterly prosecuted the Catholics, and upon his death, and the succession of Theodosius a Catholic Prince, the people designed to put the law of retaliation in force against their enemies; to which intention their holy Bishop opposeth himself in these terms, It is not this, my dear flock, that CHRIST requireth. nor what the Gospel teacheth us; let this be our revenge, to solicit their salvations, who very probably have furthered ours by their injuries: therefore let us knowingly confer benefits on them, who unawares by their malevolence have contributed to our benedictions. But if your minds do so estuate with anger, as they cannot be turned to this benevolence, do at least the next best to this, refer your revenge to Christ, reserve it for the future Tribunal, since the Lord saith, Revenge is his, and he will retribute. And this exhortation did so prevail upon the people, as they resigned their animosities, and did acquiesce unto his temper; and I may expect your acceptance of this proposition, for I hope you are as good Catholics as they; and I am sure you want half of their temptation, which is a present commodity for revenge, that is not the weakest part for the provocation.  
Wherefore it may be easier for you to retain the quality of Lambs, when you have no capacity of playing the Lions. And to dispose you towards the compliance with this condition of Lambs, in your minds you may recogitate with what nature our Saviour chose to qualify his Disciples, who were to work upon perverse adversaries, he sent them, as he saith, 
Mat. 10.16.  as sheep among wolves. Upon which words, S. chrysostom saith elegantly, Let them be ashamed who like wolves prosecute their adversaries, when they may behold troops of wolves overcome by a few sheep. And truly so long as we are sheep, we easily get the better of our enemies; but when we pass into the nature of wolves, than we are overthrown by them; for than we have no longer the protection and succour of our Pastor, who doth not feed and patronise wolves, but sheep. I pray remember then, that while you suffer like your Pastor, you overcome by his victory, and when your angers and hatreds will assault your enemies, you quit Christ, who is much stronger than your adverse party, and undertake of yourselves, who are much the weaker side; and thus you wave the privileges of Catholics, to defend yourselves by the infirmities of men.  
If you will then secure to yourselves an admirable reparation of all the violences and injuries of your enemies, you must remit them all from your hearts, and offer up to God not only your continual prayer, but even all the merit of your religious sufferings, to mediate their conversion; and if you prevail for any, you draw out of the good you do them, incomparably more advantage than from any wish that could succeed against them; for if you bring an enemy to heaven, he giveth you eternal satisfaction, for all his joy shall be set upon your crown, as an enrichment of it, and that improvement of your glory shall also be an addition to his joy.  
These than are designs fit for the members of Christ Jesus, and the temples of the holy Ghost, to raise our enemies up to our own joys, and to exalt our joys by this elevation of our enemies. This was the method of Christ Jesus our head, 
Phil. 2.9.  by humbling himself, and preferring his enemies, he heightened himself, 
1 Joh. 3.  as the Apostle telleth us, For the which thing God hath also exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names. And all these actions were designed by Jesus, for the converting enemies into friends; and they who pretend to be made like him, when they see him, must procure to look like him now upon their enemies, that having sanctified themselves, as he is holy, and being translated from death to life by this love of our brother, 
1 Thes. 4.17.  we may be thought worthy to sit together with him in heavenly places, when his enemies are his footstool, when the destruction of enemies affordeth a joy perfecting our charity; and until then, we must endeavour to accomplish our charity, by procuring to our utmost power the lessening of the number of these enemies, that remaining in charity in this life, we may be admitted into that region of love, where life everlasting is in eternal charity, and where we shall never see an enemy enter, nor a friend departed. Wherefore I will hope in God that you endeavour by your charity to bring your present enemies into that eternal tabernacle; and by this course, though you should fail of drawing your brothers, they cannot of carrying you unto more elevated mansions in your Father's house.   

CHAP. XII. Motives of joy to all sorts of Religious Sufferers.  
HAving giving you this Evangelicall safe convoy through your enemy's quarters, 
Rom. 12.20.  by showing you how the danger of this passage consisteth in your acting, not enduring hostility, (since Saint Paul's precept agreeth with Elishahs' practice in this point of not striking, but setting bread and water before enemies blinded with their: passions) now at the end of this narrow way, I shall endeavour to show you how the issue thereof, openeth into the spacious place the Psalmist saith his feet were put into, which is spiritual joy, tranquillity, and enlargement of heart. For upon faithful compliances with these duties I have discoursed, I may present respectively to each of your conditions, this Evangelicall congratulation of Gaudete & exultate, 
Mat. 5.12. Be glad and rejoice for your reward is great in heaven.  quia merces vestra copiosa est in coelis.  
To those that contested the procession of Christ's Doctrine from God, he proposeth this clear decision of the question, the observing first the will of God, whereby they should discern the verity of his asseveration, If any, 
john 7.17.  saith he, will do the will of him, he shall understand of the Doctrine whether it be of God. And I may in like manner boldly put this doctrine of the blessedness of affliction upon the same trial, affirming that whosoever shall do the will of God, 
jam. 1.11.  shall evidently perceive this to be a principle of Divine verity, Blessed is the man that suffereth tentation. Wherefore upon supposition of your conformities to the rules of Catholic doctrine which have been delivered you in the manner of your sufferings, it is that I adjudge unto you this assignation of Christ, 
Mat. 5.10 Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  of Beati qui persecutionem patiuntur propter justitiam, quia ipsorum est regnum coelorum.  
So that you may convert all the Ordinances, that dipossesse you of your transitory tenors in your country, into evidences to entitle you to this Kingdom, and make your enemies your best Stewards of your estates, and consequently, you may be accounted the only blessed party in this conjuncture; What an advantage is it for those who are in this pious pain of the Psalmist, of What shall I return to our Lord for all he hath bestowed? to have God vouchsafe, as I may say, to serve himself, and take from them that which is made more worthy of him by his taking, than it could have been by their giving. For even in the sacrifice to God of all their estates, they might peradventure have been mistaken in the application of it to the most acceptable design of God upon them, but they who part cheerfully with what God taketh from them, are sure it is disposed in the way of his choice; and this is to give to God according to his own election, which is much securer than our own designation.  
I am not ignorant of the preference given to active Charity in this point, in strict comparisons, yet this seemeth an advantage, which privation for God's sake hath above action, that we are certain of our vocation to that sort of service which God declareth to us, by his imposition of it, and we cannot be so secure, in any project of our own for his glory, that the time, the manner, and other circumstances are rightly consorted to God's present purpose; whereas in suffering religiously, what is actually inflicted by God, there can be no mis-judgement in these circumstances. This is then an advantage, every one may be assured to make, in accepting piously their losses, and deprivements, to conclude their goods are more infallibly employed according to God's present will, than their own hands could have addressed them to God's purposes; and so their devotions may be solaced in this desire of retributing somewhat to God, even after their hands cease to be ministerial in that office. For they give him by this faithful resignation all he resumeth, and present him with their acceptance of the manner of his pleasure, which is more valuable than the matter of any oblations.  
Blessed are they to whom it is given to know these mysteries of the kingdom of God, for Afflictions seem not only Parables, but even Paradoxes to such as have not the key of the Cross of Christ wherewith to open them; 
1 Cor. 1.18.  for the Word of the Cross to them that perish will be foolishness, but to them that are saved, that is to us, it is the power of God; and to find the power of God in all your crosses, I must desire every form of sufferers among you, to examine it by this Principle, That Crosses are not to be judged of according to the Predicament of Quantity, but of relation, that is, you must not amuse yourselves with thinking how much your are afflicted, but apply your minds to find how much you make of your afflictions. The first is to stay with the Murmurers in the Gospel, pondering the heat, and burden of the day, the other is to weigh with S. Paul against momentany tribulations the eternal weight of glory; 
2 Cor. 4.17  which balancing of your conditions, must needs draw from you all this confession, that your master's yoke is sweet, and his burden light; nay you shall find that your carriages are rather a support then an oppression to you, according to this elegant conceit of S. Bernard, In our course through this life, the faster we run, the casier it is for us, and the light burden of our SAVIOUR, as it increases, grows more portable. Doth not the numerousness of the plumes and feathers elevate, and not onerate the birds that bear them? Take away the feathers and the rest of the body sinketh downward by the remaining weight; so the discipline of Christ, the sweet yoke and burden of the Cross, in their rejection and deposition, only prove our depression, because they rather carry us then as loads are carried by us, while our minds feel the worth of that weight which they bear. And I hope I have showed you in conformity to this, how God hath always set plumes of this kind, unto such as he hath designed to raise, as the Prophet saith, above the altitudes of the earth. Those Eagles which are to be congregated to the Glorious Crucified body, have their wings form of these plumes, of crosses, persecutions, defamations, and such like materials, on which they make their mounties up to their rest. So that very often, when in tenderness to our friends we wish their deliverances from pressures and tentations, we vote as impertinently their good and exaltation, as if in pity to birds in summer, we should wish them unfeathered, that they might be cooler & lighter. For the sweet yoke, and the light burden of Christ are to Christians, what plumes are to such creatures, which are carried by this kind of their own portage, since our minds like their bodies, would lie still upon the earth, if they were not raised and elevated above it, by these exercitations.  
Wherefore confiding onyour virtues, I do lament most their miserable estate, that while they are now stripping and denuding, you are feathering and imping out these spiritual wings for your elevation, and are fastening millstones about their own necks, by this scandalising the little ones, who are under his protection, that hath interminated this sentence against their offenders; Nay all the power and prosperity of this world is so vain and variable even in the scene of this life, as abstracting from the menaces of the other world, there is nothing worthy of emulation in them, relating only to this age; 
Esay 40.30.  and what the Prophet Esay saith is very accommodable to the condition of your persecutors, and your fidelities in this persecution, Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as Eagles, they shall run & not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. In contemplation of this improvement of the faithful, S. Aug. saith, the devil little knows how much good he is doing, while he is in his highest point of raging, for he is indeed, but blowing the coals of God's furnace, where his gold is refining, and blowing out the flames of his own impure forges; For as God served himself of the Angels of Satan, to blow out in Saint Paul those sparks of vanity, and self-love, which are glowing still in our most mortified nature, lying but raked up●n our ashes, not extinguished: so doth the holy Spirit make use of the breath of the malign one, to abate and mortify the flames of pride, avarice, and sensuality, while he bloweth the coals of persecution, and purgation of the children of God.  
This considered, may not I justly address myself to all ranks, and postures of mourners amongst you, in these terms of Saint Paul to his countrumen in our conditions, 
Heb. 13.22. Heb. 10.34.  I desire you brethren that you suffer the word of consolation, for with the more joy you take the spoil of your goods, the greater share shall you have in that better and permanent substance you are purchasing. Do not therefore lose your confidence, which hath great remuneration; your firmness and perseverance is an adornment of the doctrine of your Saviour, a jubilation of the Angels that are lookers on in your combat, and a contexture of your own crowns, which when you have finished by perseverance unto the end, you shall find in them, all the ornaments you have set upon your Saviour's doctrine, and the gladness you have afforded the Angels, and Saints in your laborious framing of your crowns, so many several prerogatives of glory shining in them, and the joys your victories have contributed to the blessed Spirits, shall then be rendered you by every one of your partners, in so incomprehensible a measure and manner, as each one shall pay his former receipt of joy from you, and in the same act acquire infinitely more by your receiving theirs, and your Master's joy.  
While I am upon these motives of joy, 
June 30.1646.  the Letters of this week bring me one very proper to remit back unto you, which is, the glorious martyrdom of one of your brothers, which news I take me thinks (as the women did what the Angel told them of at the tomb concerning Christ's Resurrection) with fear and great joy. 
Mat. 28.8  For in one respect Fluminis impetus latificat civitatem Dei; 
Psal 45. The violence of the river maketh the city of God joyful.  in order to the fortifying and confirming your pieties, such objects of the power and grace of Catholic Religion are to be rejoiced at; and towards the propitiating of God unto all your necessities, such oblations are very efficacious; for they are so many Commissioners, sent from time to time from amongst you, to solicit fresh supplies of graces for the rest of you who are in the same militancie; but as they lie under the Altar, 
Apocal. 6.10.  crying with a loud voice for revenge of their blood on those that dwell upon the earth, in this respect the charity we own our Nation, intermixeth a sad and trembling apprehension, to find the measure of their fathers still filling up, which when it comes to be commensurate to that proportion God hath permitted it, will draw down vials of wrath, for every drop of this blood, wherewith the Land is contaminated, by the unjust effusion of it.  
Do you then for God's sake strive, to make as much benefit as the occasion offereth. Wherefore all you who are his brothers of the same Tribe, and so by the Law, his next heirs, aught to account yourselves (as indeed you are) left executors of his labours, charities, and pious offices to your brothers, and enjoying your own legacies of fervour, patience, and fidelity, which his example hath left you, you may also faithfully dispense the several benefits of this holy pattern, which respectively belong to all the conditions of the Nation, that are the remoter kindred of this blessed Testator, who hath left the whole Catholic stock of the Country, proportionate means to their callings, of being edified by his Testament, the which you must endeavour to dispense to them, according to their several qualifications; and while you do providently manage this portion of example he hath left you, you may enrich yourselves so, as if Christ shall please to call you to the honour of drinking of this his own cup, you may also leave this rich talon of Martyrdom, improved to your survivors and heirs, that every Martyr may seem to add somewhat to the stock of the Nations merit, to counter-balance in the sight of God, somewhat the provocation of the other part, and that by the descent of this spirit of sacrifice amongst you, there may be a successive provision made of such holy hosts, out of this family of God, (the which will always propagate by this generating death) to the end, this spiritual progeny may be continued, by the fruitful seed of Martyrdom, until it shall please God to regenerate the whole Nation, by that way which may seem strange to many Nicodemuses, by making her enter again into her mother's womb. Wherefore I may lawfully charge all you that are his heirs and executors, with this Commission from him, Take an example, 
Jam. 5.10  brethren, of labour and patience, the Prophets, which spoke in the name of the Lord: Behold, we account them blessed that have suffered.  
And for that part of you which remains in the outward court of the Tabernacle, and so are not appointed to the Altar of Holocausts, you are called to take an instruction from this sacrifice, which may silence all your complaints, to wit, that your clothes, as it were, are but used, as this your brother's person was, for it is your goods only that are quartered, and drawn from you; so that if you should seem too sensible of that separation, it might be reproached to you, that your worldly substances were more inviscerate in your hearts, than the hearts of those your brothers were in their bodies, whereof they so cheerfully accept the sequestration. I beseech you then by the bowels of Jesus Christ, to act your parts as graciously, and to bring in your offerings with as much alacrity, every one according to the several divisions of graces, 
1 Cor. 12.  and the same spirit, that each of you may be, as S. Peter saith, a good dispenser of the manifold grace of God.  
And thus while you offer your different oblations, with the same fidelity the service of the temple may be consummate between you, when one part of the body furnisheth the blood, and the other the fat of the sacrifice. 
Psal. 65. My mouth hath spoken in my tribulation, holo causts with marrow will I ofter to thee.  By this consort of zeal in all parts, the Church among you may sing with the Psalmist, I ocutum est cor meum in tribulatione mea, holocausta medullata offeram tibi. And this is the most promising course can be pursued, to plead for a mitigation of God's chastisements on his little flock, and to mediate the reduction of the straying part of the Nation into the fold. Wherefore the Apostles advice to his Countrymen, is very apposite in this occasion of yours, 
Meb. 13.7.  Remember your Prelates, who have spoken the word of God to you: the end of whose conversation beholding, imitate their faith.  
I will not follow this invitation; which seems to call me to say over the office of the Martyrs, in honour of this supremest vocation of Christianity, since I may presume, that all those among you, who stand candidat for this dignity of whitening their robes in the blood of the Lamb, are better qualified then myself for this election. Wherefore I will rest in this payment, of my humble reverence to this particular Saint, who hath so lately overcome with the same arms of the Lamb of God slain from the beginning, & so is now according to his promise, 
Apoc. 3.21  sitting with him on his throne, invested with power over nations, humbly beseeching him to intercede unto his Head Christ Jesus, for those hands (unhappy unto themselves) that have been so beneficial to him, and to solicit him for his brothers remaining in the foulness of this earth, that those who are not called to the honour of washing their robes as he, may at least be furnished with the grace of watching and keeping their garments, 
Apoc. 16.15  that they walk not naked, and show their turpitude, but may be found in all their temporal despoilments and devestures, clothed with that silk which is the justification of the Saints; and so may be dressed in their wedding Garment for the marriage supper of the Lamb. 
Apoc. 19.8  And this, which is my supplication to Christ by the intercession of this Saint, desires all that be witnesses of it to be partners in the same petition, to the Lamb of God, and to him who sitteth upon the throne.  
After this little usual Parenthesis, which stands like an Island in a stream, (that rather beautifies the river in breaking a while the course of it) I will carry you on in the same current of Motives to joy we were upon, which I designed to branch out into several channels, that might run through, and refresh the different estates of the sufferers among you, unto all which the Apostle offereth this general congratulation, 
Phil. 1.28.  To you it is given for CHRIST, not only that you believe in him, but also that you suffer for him. These are words that do highly extol the grace of sufferance, for Saint Paul paralleleth it here with the grace of believing, nay it seems an exaggeration of that of suffering, to a degree above the other, his saying that to them was given not only to believe, but to suffer, as some superaddition of an extraordidinary gratification from God. And surely if we reflect considerately upon the grace of suffering virtuously for Christ, we shall find, that it is the accomplishment of our faith, and the last term of Christian perfection in this life, for it is not only a demonstration of our faith, and hope, but an unquestionable evidence of our love. For what the Apostle Saint James saith of believing, and working, 
James 21.18.  supposing the occasion, holdeth adequately between loving, and suffering; for to any who shall confide in their untried love, I may say with the Apostle, You have love, and I patience, show me your love without patience, and I will show you my love by my patience; you love God while you are benefited, do not the heathens do the same? This application doth quadrate, me thinks, to this case, for indeed it is not possible to show our love, when we are called to suffer, without manifesting it by a religious patience, and by that we do clearly evidence our love.  
Therefore it is excellently said by a holy man, That a Christian who knoweth not how to suffer, knoweth as little how to love, for as love is the soul of Christianity, so suffering is the soul of love. God himself who could not be prescribed this way of expressing his love, chose it from eternity. So as to doubt of this Verity, is to shake the whole frame of Christianity. Wherefore we must not desire to try our loves by those affections we may feel to act for Christ, when we are in the state of enduring for him, for it may often rise from natural propensions, 
1 Pet. 4.13 Communicating with the passions of Christ, rejoice, that in the revolation also of his glory you may be glad rejoicing.  this promptitude to action, but the acquiescence to privation and suffering is most assuredly the operation of Grace. Therefore you ought now to judge of the proportion of your loves, by that measure of conformity you find in them, to this advice of the Prince of the Apostles, Communicantes passionthus Christi gaudete, ut in revelatione gloria ejus gaudeatis exultantes. For every different state of sufferers among you, shall be r●ted by their recompenses, not by their proportions of pains they have endured, but by the measure of joy they have felt in suffering for Christ; for it is the manner of their acceptance, not the matter of their impositions, whereupon they are to be adjudged their reparation. In so much as in your cases, I may invert Christ's words to distinguish his true Disciples amongst you, from the world's adherents, saying, 
john 16.  The first shall rejoice, and the other weep and lament, and this gladness shall be turned into more joy, and that sorrow into more discomfort; for they deserve not heaven, that 〈◊〉 are so fare from giving all they have for it, as to lament the being assisted in the purchase by Gods own hand, in taking from them as much as he asketh, and demanding only their good will to the bargain. Whereupon in this exhortation, I may use the words of the Apostle in the same manner I have done those of our Saviour, 
2 Cor. 2.2.  Who is it can make me glad, but he that is made glad by me?  
The first estate I will present in particular this parabien of their sufferance, shall be that, which we have nearest in our eye of the refugiats of our nation, which have taken sanctuary in Catholic Countries, whereof there are even from the Cedars of Lihanus to the rushes of the fields; and I conceive the Queen herself may be presented under this notion, for I would to God Catholic Religion were as much naturalised in England, as I have heard she is to the Nation; and it were me thinks unjust, not to assign her a due proportion of joy, who hath so large a portion of the national suffering, in this particular respect of Catholic. Therefore I do humbly present her with the parabien of all her crosses and vexations relating to her Religion, for even the defeature of her hopes in this life, may arm her the better for that victory she cannot fail of, by but virtuously accepting all her defeatures. For though it hath not pleased God, she should have the Emperor Constantine's success, yet she hath the same sign to promise her a more glorious Empire, for looking up by faith, she shall see in all her clouds the Cross with this inscription, In this sign thou shalt overcome. It is at the feet of the Cross then, I lay that joy I offer to her present condition, presuming she looketh often there, and so will not fail to find it.  
I could easily show her many Queens in this procession of the Cruciad, charged with heavier crosses than hers, but I do not desire to ease her by the consideration of what she doth not suffer, but by the right apprehension of what she doth, for that is the most noble, and most christian manner of solacing her, not to lighten her burden in her imagination, but to strengthen her will for the bearing and toleration of it, that she may think her cross commodious, in respect of the hand that layeth it on, not of the company that hath carried it with her, and so aspire to be a greater Saint than she is a sufferer. And the way to attain to this sovereign prerogative, is to express a religious and Christian joy, in this her state of communicating with the passions of Christ, whereby she may supply this defect of her present condition, the inability to relieve her Catholic Subjects, the way she hath formerly, by communicating to them now joy in their tribulations, by the virtue of so operative an example; and thus while she remaineth suspended from the propagating of Catholic Religion among her Subjects, by way of amplification, or extent, she may still advance it in degrees of intention and eminence.  
And I may truly without endangering the blotting these lines with flattery, that are drawn towards her, give her joy also of the great improvement of her piety, in the opinion of all competent judges in this time of her trial and probation; in so much as I cannot doubt, but her soul acknowledgeth to God with King David, 
Psal. 118.17.  It is good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn thy justifications. So I beseech God to advance her to that degree, in the understanding of the Cross, as her heart may avow with that holy King, 
Psal. 86.7.  The habitation in thee is as it were of all rejoicing.  
There is another here in these our asyles, whose eminent quality may justify a particular salutation and welcoming into the society of the Cross, and this may seem the more due to her, in regard of her names being so notorious for temporal felicity, not only in our Nation, 
The Lady Duchess of Buckingham.  but the rest of Christendom; and now we look upon her, as a wreck of Fortune cast upon these coasts; whose secular ruins may serve to disabuse the commercers in the unfaithful sea of this age, and whose spiritual composure and virtue may be useful towards the enlightening of lower ranks, in the benefits of adversity; wherein she seemeth so illuminated, as she is retreated further out of the world, than misfortune could chase her, and hath taken sanctuary as it were within the inward veil of the Tabernacle, and so doth not only piously bear her own Crasse, but zealously take upon her another voluntary crucifixion, seeming not to seek case, but rather activity in the way of the Cross, by her adventuring so vigorously to repair to a more sanctified manner of suffering, wherein she is now engaged, and doth act in this course as vigilantly, as if she had neither quality, nor persecution to recommend her.  
So as from her virtue, there may be these two public utilityes expected, the silencing of many complaints that have fare lesser sufferings to claim pity upon, and the exhibiting this reccipt to others, of curing the injuries of the world by the contempt of it. For truly nothing takes out so well the fire of tribulation, as the flame of zeal and devotion. Which remedy I beseech God to impart, to all those of the nation who are now in their fiery trial. And for the particular of this worthy person, I hope it will not seem unbecoming my office, to incense her a little with these good odours of her own estimation in these countries, being it is not like to stuff her head with any vanity, but only to delight her the more with the savour of piety and religion. Therefore I will leave her, laying this sweet meditation at the door of her cell, a perfume taken out of the cabinet of a great and holy King, 
Psal. 118.96.  Of all consummation I have seen the end, thy commandment is exceeding large.  
There is another person of the same sex, and quality within the Kingdom, (which though it be out of the limits I had now prefixed myself of this side of the sea) yet her commemoration cannot come in more properly, 
The Lady marchioness of winchester.  in respect of the company, her case deserving a special remark, and as I am informed, her virtue meriting a peculiar note of estimation, to be transmitted to posterity. And I am certain the singularity of her suffering, requireth an extraordinary animadversion, for imprisonment to her sex & quality for religion, is a primitive severity, and her zeal, patience and humility is reported be such, as they seem to have moved God to illustrate them by such a trial, as only the Primitive Saints have had, among which she may find many precedents of her case, and fair draughts of all those Christian virtues, which shall be pleased to pass down by her tradition of them to posterity.  
Let her therefore consider herself set up for her sex to copy, that as her sufferance draweth many eyes upon her, so they may be all invited in seeing her virtue, to draw by her the manner of suffering; and thus her imprisoment may impart to others, a nobler liberty than her own person is deprived of, and contribute somewhat to her finishing the sampler of piety and confidence, she is to exhibit to her sex. I find one figure in the primitive times, very fit to fet before her eyes, which Saint Basil painteth forth to us in excellent colours, it was a Lady of great quality called Julitta, who having been called by the Magistrates to answer the accusation of her faith, and being persuaded by her less Christian friends, to dissemble her beleese so fare, as might probably exempt her from the rigours proclaimed against the professors thereof, and when it was argued, that her sex might well extenuate her declining such terrible penalties, as were decreed upon the refusal of compliance with the times, she made this heroical answer, Woman is made by the same hand as man, and equally capable of virtue, for unto the construction of woman, flesh alone was not applied, but of a bone of the bones of man she was composed, which signifies, that we are obliged no less than men to exhibit to God, and to the world evidences of the firmness of our faith and constancy of mind, courage, and patience in all adversities; And in this disposition she answered her examiners, in so masculine a style of virtue and religion, as she was presently condemned to prison, and soon after to a most exemplary martyrdom.  
If I be not misinformed, there are many notes of the same key in these two Lady's lessons, but howsoever I am sure they are both consorted, in the harmony of virtue in the suffering for the profession of the true religion of Christ; therefore I shall humbly desire this Lady I now give joy of her sufferance, that as she is thus far advanced in a similitude with this glorious Saint, she would endeavour to perfect her disposition of sanctity, that she may honour, and edify her sex by her exemplary life, and martyrdom of her liberty, as the other hath done by her sanguinary martyrdom, and I may make up my present to her in this precious cover of Saint Peter, 
1 Pet. 4.14  If you be reviled in the name of CHRIST you shall be blessed, because that which is of the honour, glory and virtue of God, and the spirit which is his, shall rest upon you.  
By my instancing in particular these two most eminent persons of our nation, I doubt not but the other virtuous sufferers of their sex, will judge themselves rather honoured then obscured, and the other sex cannot question this civiltiy, and deference to such remarkable persons, being pressed as it were by such memorable circumstances in their conditions, nor doth my design point at any particular acquisition of resentment, my profession being (thanks be to God) out of the reach of private gratifications, and indeed I design it for a public monument of the virtue of the nation, the impression of the memory of these two eminent persons, up●n the face of time itself, in a more durable character, than the fading imagery of cursory discourse, that as far as it shall please God, to suffer these thoughts of mine to pass downwards towards succeeding times, the names of these two excellent women, may have their due commemoration, while mine rests in a deserved concealment.  
Returning now to the generality of our persecuted refugiats, I must desire them to acount themselves, but travailing in the accomplishment of a vow, for indeed all Christians are votaries in baptism, of an incessant pilgrimage through this world, and a convenient local establishment, doth commonly banish the memory of our vow, whereas flight, and exile keeps us upon the stage of our profession, whereupon Saint Justine Martyr saith properly, in commendation of the minds of the primitive Christians, That every foreign region was their country, and all their country a foreign region to them. Therefore S. Basil when he was threatened to be banished out of his Bishopric, answered his persecutor, That he might be sent home, but could not be banished in this world, when all places were his way to his country, and no place here his country. For indeed it is as Saint Augustine saith, Every man is made a stranger by his birth, and by death only makes his remigration. Account yourselves then rather employed upon several commissions, as Christ's Disciples then forced out of your habitations, and every time you look up to heaven, think you are reading your instructions in these words of Saint Paul, 
Heb. 13.13  Let us go forth therefore to him, without the camp, carrying his reproach, for we have not here a permanent city, but we seek that which is to come.  
O think then on him who descended from heaven, and appeared on earth as a stranger to seek you, when you were lost, and yet had not so much as the compassion of being a stranger to recommend him, and was so far from finding any good usage for his Religion, as that was the subject of his persecution. In how much an easier condition are you, who are in the way from earth to heaven, and whose estate of strangers, and persecuted, affordeth you freedom in your Religion, and commiseration to your persons? when you balance your present estates, and your vocations together, you will find this yoke sweet, wherein Christ hath not only drawn in person, but is still drawing with you by a consociation of his grace, of whom you should rather implore the grace of well disscising yourselves of that native earth you carry about you, than the being restored to that whereof you are dispossessed. And you may judge of your dispositions towards this point of Christian perfection, by the rule given by an holy Father of the Church to his fellow pilgrims, 
Hugode S. victore.  He is yet too tender, to whom his native country seemeth sweet, he is strong, to whom every land seemeth his country, and he is perfect to whom the whole world seemeth an exile. The first hath fixed his love in this world, the second hath dispersed and scattered it upon it, the last hath extinguished his love to it. And why should I not hope for your aspiring to this perfect relinquishing of the world, when you are assisted by so much improbability, of ever returning to any tempting portion of it?  
Therefore the steps of these your peregrinations, must not be halting between two ways, turning your heads backward upon that country from which your bodies are removing. This looking awry may easily cause you to stumble in your way, therefore for God's sake keep the whole man strait, always advancing forward in the easiest and safest posture, looking to that home, from whence you are truly exiled, and are the more distanced, the more you account this your remove from your earthly habitation, to be a bainshment. Remember Christ marching before all his Disciples up to Jerusalem, with so much vigour and alacrity, as they who followed him were astonished at his diligence. When you set your hearts after this disposition of Christ in your travails, this your Lawgiver will give you blessings, and you shall go from virtue to virtue, having disposed ascension in your heart in this vale of tears; and they among you, whose hearts, as the Apostle saith, confess they are pilgrims, and strangers upon earth, and say these things, signify, That they seek their true country.  
Wherefore for the close of this peculiar instruction, I offer you with Saint Paul, the reflection on your father Abraham, whom you resemble more specially than others in this feature of your peregrination. You know if he had been mindful of the Land from whence he was called forth, he had time and convenience to return, which is more temptation than you have, and yet he continued faithful in his sequestration from his country, beholding the promises much farther off than you do now; and saluting them with a believing acquiescence to his word that had promised them; for as the Apostle saith, 
Heb. 10.40  for you God hath provided some better thing, a present issue out of this strange sejourment, into the land of promise. Therefore you are more obliged to that faith is required of you, which hath a shorter trial and a sooner recompense. As fare then as you are the only legitimate sons of Abraham, in point of faith, do I beseech you to do the works of your Father in point of perseverance and longanimity, 
Heb. 6.14.  that out of Abraham's tents, you may remove into his bosom, who by patiently enduring obtained the promise.  
Now looking over into England, 
For prisoners.  the first place a messenger from the Cross ought to land at, is, the Prisons of the Country; for there he is the likeliest to find those he seeketh, therefore I make there my first salutation, giving them joy of these bonds and irons that are appertenancies to the Cross of Christ; for as the Church triumphant hath orders, and degrees of beatitudes, so hath the Church militant forms and stations of sufferances, which qualify every one respectively for that preferment which is to be answerable to the degrees of similitude to the passions of Christ, which every member attaineth unto, in this time of crucifixion.  
In the figure of Christ's life, which is the exemplar of all our dispositions in sufferings, we find but a little glimpse of imprisonment, from which we may draw a copy of our comportment in that state; for there is but one night's bondage in all his life extant, and exposed for our study; so as this condition seemeth one of the least exemplified and ennobled portions of the Cross by Christ's person, but in recompense, to honour this state of suffering, he is pleased to be personated by every prisoner, and so this state of durance, which hath been honoured but a short time by his person, may be looked upon as dignified by a continual representation of him. And surely Prisoners have this particular means of meriting, (the being put to represent Christ, in one of the postures which is the most averse to our nature, being the loss of liberty) and so may expect a commensurate elevation of their nature, in the state of the liberty of the sons of God. And the difficulty of your parts seemeth raised by this circumstance, of being debarred all manner of acting for God, or exterior worship of him.  
This removal from his presence in his ordinances, is a privation you may boldly pretend a great restitution upon, and out of all the unpleasantness of your parts, you may derive this consolation, That it is a cross hath nothing of your election in it, and so the likelier to have the more of God's design, and consequently to prove the more purgative and depuring of your nature, for imprisonment is a cross of such a quality, as it is often the most proper expedient for our improvement in grace, and yet it is not possible for us to take it, without being helped to it by some necessity, therefore we should always ascribe this state to God's knowledge of our want thereof, since our nature may very often require this receipt, and can never know our wanting it but by experimenting the operation of it for God's design upon us, may demand the severing us from some adherence, which we could not judge opposite to the order of our grace, until we find ourselves by degrees disengaged from it; for we may be appointed by God to some vocation, we could not imagine, till he had by means appropriated for that qualification, enlightened, and prepared us for the discharge of such a calling.  
In many cases, no less than the loss of what we could not part with but by force, which is our liberty, is requisite to convey to us, what is better worth than all we could have wished, before we had received that addition, which is, an enlargement of grace, and a straighter enclosure of our wills within the pleasure of our Creator. Wherefore we ought always to attribute the deprivement of our liberty, to some special purpose of God, which we must inquire, by the best use we can assign our time unto, which is prayer and study, and by them God doth commonly (as from under the wings of the two Cherubims) speak to us his design upon us.  
This state of sufferance, hath been much honoured by the persons of the Apostles; the prisons seemed their Inns in their perambulation of the world. Wherein we may remark a special kindness of God to prisoners, who being not in an estate of hearing the doctrine of Christ, as it passed through their country, was pleased to send the Apostles as it were so much out of their way, to seek prisoners and minister it to them. For surely such lodgings, may to human reason, seem much out of the way, to such as were to circuit the whole world. And me thinks we cannot render a more apposite reason of Gods bestowing so much of the Apostles time upon prisons, than his special grace, and indulgence to this distressful state of sufferers. For in all other respects, this immuring of the Apostles, who were so few, and had so long journeys set them, might seem an impediment of their Commission, and rather a putting that light under a bushel, than a way to illuminate the darkness of the whole world, by the diffusion of it; and yet we see how much of Saint Paul's time God alloweth to prisons; two years in Caesarea, as many interpret it, and certainly two whole years in his first bonds at Rome, besides all those other interjections, of those links of this chain, as at Philippi, and other places in his progress, where we see him dissolving the bonds of his companions, by touching them at his own, and fastening many to the Cross of Christ, whose irons he converted into nails for that service.  
And Ecclesiastical records deliver unto us eminent and numerous conversions, wrought in prisons upon the same miracles, which were effectless in the streets, and the temples; and this may well be impured to the congruity, and sympathy there seemeth to be, between the vocation of a Christian, & the estate of a prisoner; for as the first is a dying to the world, the last is a civil death unto the same; so as this Sequestration from the world, must needs be a congruous disposition, to a spiritual departure from the life of the world. And besides this literal analogy, which there is between being buried with Christ, & being entombed in the world, this similitude is very operative, as well as consonant; for this state of separation from the objects of our worldly affections, worketh much towards their extinction; so that in many respects, the state of imprisoment, hath much consonancy with the requisitions of Christianity.  
If then imprisonment being simply considered, hath much report and analogy with the profession of a Christian, that durance which respecteth directly the profession of true Christianity, must needs be a state of very near alliance to Christ, and so may well be congratulated in those who should pursue nothing so seriously, as this estate of their patron Saint Paul, of being crucified to the world, when they are crucified by it.  
Wherefore I beseech you studiously to cooperate with the facilitation, this your condition affordeth you, to break prison and to dissolve more pernicious bonds, than those which hang but on your outsides, such fetters as liberty and prosperity do commonly frame within us, binding our souls so subtly in their prison, as they perceive not their own captivity. This is a work for which you cannot wish a fit time, to file away by degrees these your chains of all worldly cupidity, which you will find hard enough, when you come to work upon them, though they are so soft and supple, as you scarce feel them while they lie entire upon you. And by this enlargement of your souls, you may come to S. Paul's blessing as well as to his posture, That your brethren may know that the things which have happened unto you are fall'n out rather to the furtherance of your Religion, when considering your exemplary improvements, every one may be edified by the grace and virtue of your faith. And thus your chains may in some proportion have the effects of those of the Apostle, That many of your brethren in our Lord, having confidence in your lands, may be much more bold in the profession of their faith.  
You may observe for the honour of your conditions, 
Phil. 1.  that S. Paul sometimes waveth the dignity of Apostle, and pleadeth this of Prisoner of Jesus Christ, as an equivalent pre-eminence. Upon which chain of S. Paul, S. chrysostom sticketh not to say, That it is a more illustrious estate to be a prisoner for CHRIST, than either Apostle, Doctor, or Evangelist: and pursueth thus the endearment of this state, Nothing can be more blessed than this chain, I do not repute Paul so happy for his rapture into Paradise, as for his restraint in those bonds. It seemeth a greater favour for me to be ill treated for CHRIST, then to be honoured by him. And proceeding to blazon the coat of this noble condition, he saith, So Peter was bound and loosened by an Angel; in this case if one should have asked me, which I would choose to be, either Peter inchained, or the Angel striking off his irons, I should have taken the place of Peter; the grace of this bondage is a greater gift then to stay the sun, or to move the world, or to command the devils. 
Acts 16.  The prison was shaken in pieces, where Paul was bound, and the bands of all the Prisoners were broken. Mark the nature of these bands which dissolve the bands of others, for as the death of our Lord killed death, so Paul's chains, unchained fetters, shaken prisons in pieces, and broke open doors. So that Paul bound hath dominion over all bands; nay more, when he sailed in bands, he stays, and bindeth up the storm, freeth the ship wrecked, and restraineth the venom of the viper. These reflections on the opinions of Saints, may direct you in the sense of your condition; for though you are not endowed with the gift of dissolving bands, and opening prisons, yet if you find in yourselves the disposition of piously and cheerfully staying in them, and a desire of improving this time towards the loosening the cords of Adam in yourselves, by acquiring contrary habits of the spiritual liberty of the second Adam, you shall possess yourselves of the greater grace; for it is an higher estate, to be with S. Paul nailed to the Cross with Christ, then to be rending the foundations of prisons, or shaking the vipers that are upon your hands into the fire. For they are the rods, wherewith S. Paul himself was strucken at Philippi, which make new rays of glory in his crown, not the chains which he struck off from his fellow prisoners.  
Wherefore I beseech you all, not to intent so much the loosening of your irons, as the converting them into that gold wherewith the heavenly Jerusalem is paved, which is celestial charity. Hoping therefore in God that you assign this your time of civil death to the study of a spiritual life, I will set this blessed Epitaph upon your tomb for you to read, You are dead, and your life is hidden with CHRIST in God: when CHRIST shall appear, 
Colos. 3.34  your life, then shall you also appear with him in glory.  
The next visit I make, shall be, 
For the despoiled.  to such as heretofore have practised Christian medicine upon the distresses of others, and now are patients themselves in this point of necessity. Me thinks when I come into such families, with the Angel's message, 
Toby 5.11.  to give them joy, I may well expect such an answer as old Toby gave in this case, What joy can we have, sitting in this darkness of fortune, seeing no light of any relief or restitution? To such, though I cannot answer as the Angel did to Toby, Be of good cheer, for your cure is near at hand from God, yet I have a message to them of no less comfort from the master of that Angel, Thus saith the first, 
Apoc. 2.12  and the last, who was dead, and liveth, I know your tribulation, and your poverty, but you are rich. What this riches meaneth, they cannot mistake, which know by experience, that no material substances, which may be so easily removed and alienated, aught to be accounted the riches of a Christian; Christ Jesus left no such moveables for Christians to reckon their estates upon, as could be plundered, or sequestered.  
Your treasure then is this similitude with Christ, 
2 Cor. 8.9.  who being rich, became poor for you, that by his poverty you might be rich. You are advanced half way towards this complete imitation of him, for of rich you are made poor for his sake. But in this part, it may be there is little desert towards him, because your wills have wrought little upon this part of the copy. The other half than that remaineth to finish, must be perfected by the acts of your own wills, which is, to endeavour that Christ may be made rich by your poverty. This may be done (you being members of Christ) by your becoming rich in all that spiritual treasure, which may be digged out of this rock of poverty; as patience, humility, contempt of the world, and the love of God. For every member of Christ, that accumulateth such treasures of grace, enricheth the body of Christ. This is an honour that Poverty is allowed, to enrich Christ, by the same means whereby he hath made us rich, to wit, by our indigence and necessity, to confer treasure on his Church, since all the opulency thereof, is an addition to his estate.  
You need not wonder then, that I offer you joy in this your condition, when your taking it, & showing that you have it, is the means of your enriching Christ by this your poverty. For since you have not one of the hardest parts of poverty to contend with your nature in, which is, the dipossessing yourselves, of those eases which your senses have still hold of, and strive to retain, you having but the acceptance of your privations left to obtain of your nature, may account yourselves carried by accident, half way to the end of Christian perfection, of relinquishing all for Christ. And surely if you do now joyfully embrace your wants and destitutions, you may be said to recover the merit of having given to Christ all you have lost. For they who give all away in preference of this state, of the poverty of Christ, do not please God so much in resolving to want, as in actually feeling the incommodities thereof, and joying in that conformity to Christ: so that your rejoicing in the present distresses of poverty, is the point which valueth this condition, and so bringeth you to the meritorious part of a voluntary donation of all your violent deprivements; and on the other side, if you repine and murmur at your losses, you do commit a kind of mental sacrilege, in desiring to take back what God seemeth to have applied to the honouring the poverty of his Son, which is, the reducing the opulent to embrace and rejoice in indigence, in order to an attendance upon the necessitous condition of Christ.  
Therefore you may well accept with alacrity this order of God, and conclude, that if you are conscient to yourselves of Christian largeness of heart, in the abundance of your fortune, that God out of mercy hath with his own hand given you these last touches of the image of his Son, that you might have both these resemblances of him, the having been poor as well as bountiful. In the first of which features, you know God is so much delighted, as he hath so disposed the world, that it affordeth him much more of that object, then of the other; for there is far more poverty upon the earth than charity. And it is so ordered, as together with the act of charity, there is always extant the object of necessity, and this latter is often existent single without the other, so as you may account this state of poverty and passiveness you are now in, no less acceptable to God then that of abundance and dispensation to others, from whence you are translated.  
And surely you may conclude this your present estate of sufferance and purgation, to be fitly ministered for the cure of some infirmity, wherewith yourselves were unacquainted. For we have all sins, which are secrets even to our own sincerest inquisition. We know David after his confession, 
Psal. 18.23.  desired to be informed of God of his omissions, and to be cleansed of his secret sins; and Saint Augustine praiseth God's mercy, for the sins he had not committed, by the grace of God's prevention. You may well then impute this change of your estate, either to a merciful purpose of God, to draw out some worm, growing imperceptibly in the full body of your temporal commodities, or to keep out some snake, which God foresaw would have insinuated itself into those covers of plenty and abundance were standing in your former conditions. So as in either of these cases, you may resolve this change to be a mercy, veiled under this mystery of your affliction.  
Whereupon I may fitly present you with this comfort of the Evangelicall Prophet, 
Isay 54.8  I hide my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy redeemer. And if you may well take it for a favourable Composition, the being taxed at some few day's revenue in this life, for a discharge of the least delinquency against your Creator and Redeemer, how justly then ought you to rejoice at this bargain, wherein there wanteth but your setting your heart to it, to make it a valid conveyance of all your estates over to the land of the living, and so to convert your momentany privations, into an improvement of your eternal possessions? when you may make this blessed claim of the Psalmist, 
Psal. 38.8.  Now what is my expectation? is it not our Lord? and my sustance is with thee. These considerations I am certain, may justify my giving you joy of your present conditions, and if you take it, you will need solicit no other reparatory, for if the poverty of Christ doth thus enrich you, O! what may you hope for, in the plenitude of his treasure from such a master, as is able to furnish joy to the followers of him in his sorrow? what may be expected at the entering into that master's joy?  
Thus I have visited the principal stations of our Crosse-bearers, and according to my best capacity, I have offered the hungry meat, the stranger's hospitality, the prisoners society: I have served every one faithfully with their several portions of consolation, which the great master of the family distributeth to them, through my hands; therefore I shall now exhibit unto them all collectively this Pharmacum Catholicum, this Canonike, or universal receipt of Saint Paul, appliable to all conditions, 
Phil. 1.28.  In nothing be terrified of the adversaries, which to them is cause of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God; for to you it is given, for CHRIST, not only that you believe in him, but also that you suffer for him.   

CHAP. XIII. A Summary of the precedent Treatise.  
WHen I view these sheets, me thinks they call to my mind the Book sent to the Prophet Ezekiel, written full with these three Contents, Lamentations, A Song, and We, whereunto the three Covenants of Sufferance, (the subject of my lines) may be not improperly accommodated. For the first of them as Men, answereth well to the Lamentations of the Prophet, as consisting altogether of sorrow and labour. And the second as Christians, reporteth to the Song, which signifieth praising and gladness, for under the notion of Christians, we may fitly sing and rejoice in our obligation to suffer. And the last as Catholics, relateth not unfitly to the third of We. For as Persecution and the Cross was the Mother, so affliction hath always been one of the nurses of Catholic Religion: And the state of Christians, standing in the middle, doth like the Sun in the Sky, enlighten the orbs above and below it; for this condition of suffering as members of Christ, disasperates the thorns left in the sides of the sons of Adam, and sweetens that Cup mingled with Myrrh, which we take from the hand of our mother the Catholic Church, who gathereth Myrrh with all her Aromatical spices.  
And I would to God there were but as much similitude between the persons, as between the Commissions of the Prophet and mine, for he was sent to treat of these subjects, with people in your condition, the Church of God in persecution and captivity, to enjoin them Lamentation for their sins, to promise them joy to their obedience, and to denounce Woe against their inconformity. Which offices I have discharged to the best of my capacity; and I may own the charge from God, in that order, wherein all good gifts come from above, 
Jam. 1.17  from the Father of lights; and more precisely by Saint Paul's direction, 
2 Cor. 3.9  of Communicating to the necessities of the Saints, 
Rom. 12.13  without arrogating any thing, towards the least glimpse of pretending an extraordinary warrant. The Apostle investeth us with this honour of being God's coadjutors. Wherefore the meanest of that function may avouch his Spirit for the author of what tendeth to the communicating of his good impulses to the refection and solace of his desolated brothers; So that whatsoever in these lines, shall bring any drop of consolation, passeth my pen, but as through a pipe, which giveth conveyance only, no virtue, to what is transfused. And I desire there may be no more ascribed to my ink, then ought to be to the dirt, or the water of Siloe, 
John 9.24  which were used in the blind man's cure; for it may be truly answered to all such as shall receive any benefit by my pen, Give glory unto God, for we know this man is a sinner.  
They who will benefit by these my prescriptions, must be desired to enter into a serious consideration, of these three points, which do naturally issue from the heads of our triple covenant. The first is, the misery of our estate as sons of Adam; The second is, the dignified condition of the members of Christ; The third is, security of being such by our incorporation into the Catholic Church, the which only is his body, and his spouse. The first may be ministered against all refractory humour, that exasperateth our grievances, the which we may-sweeten by this reflection, that We are born to sorrow as birds to fly. 
Job 5.7.  This may well asswag our distempers, to consider sufferance not as an estate of compulsion, but of consonancy to our condemned nature. The second, may present to us our sentence of sorrow, converted into a gratification, by proving the means of our connexion to such an head, who by putting the griefs, and dolours of our nature into his bosom, hath taken out the sting, and hath taught us to kill their venom by embracing them; And the third ascertaineth us, to be within that circle, wherein the eternal benefit of all the sorrows of the head or members are limited, and determined. This triangle of meditation, is well proportioned to all your suffering hearts, in which form I have drawn this present of my heart unto you, and having borrowed of Saint Paul the most of what I have presented to you to make up the want of weight in what is of mine own stock, I will borrow this also from him, 
2 Cor. 12.15  This little labour I most gladly bestow, and will myself moreover be bestowed for your souls.  
If I may make a request to you upon this present, it shall be, to retain chiefly the second of these three points I have treated; which are, your obligation to suffer, your manner of bearing the Cross, and your merit in the faithful carriage thereof. There is little danger of your forgetting the first, in these times, nor any fear of Gods forgetting of the last, both in this time, and in eternity. 
Heb. 6.10.  God is not unjust that he should forget your work and love, which you have showed in his name. So as all the difficulty rests in your complying faithfully with the Evangelicall manner of suffering exhibited so fairly to you in the practice and precepts of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who as Saint Peter urgeth it to us, 
1 Pet. 2.21  suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you may follow his steps; which I have set out before you, as fairly, figured and impressed upon these papers, as my skill can afford their edition. I have showed you their Marches, towards friends, and their Postures to enemies, in the exercises of all sorts of charities, active and passive; I have exposed unto you the Apostles and the Martyrs following of Christ in the same tract, all making one procession of the Cross; I have removed all those stumbling blocks and stones of scandal I could find in your way, that might endanger you in your following and carrying your Crosses safely and graciously in this train; I have cleared all those scruples, and dissipated those temptations, I conceived the most obnoxious, and the most subtle the enemy could object to amuse you, or excite, to seduce you. Against both which impediments in the way of the Cross, (to wit, of doubts which might keep you unresolved, and of offers that might divert you) I have given their precautions, and defences respectively to the natures of the dangers.  
Having thus furnished you, the arms of righteousness on the right hand, and the left, with all sincerity, and as much ability as God hath pleased to impart unto me, I may use the terms of the beloved Apostle upon the same occasion, 
1 John. 14.  These things we writ to you that you may rejoice, and your joy may be full. For surely if out of these principles of Catholic Religion, you do but extract some drops of joy, 
Psa. 109.7 Of the torrent in the way shall be drink, therefore shall he exalt his head.  now while you are drinking or the torrent in the way with him of whom the Psalmist saith, De torrente in viâ bibet, propterea exaltabit caput; with what a torrent of joy shall you be refreshed when you come to be united to that exalted head, and drink as it were with his mouth, tasting the same volupty which he feedeth, and liveth upon? In this contemplation, me thinks it should be no harder a matter for you to be pleased now in your pressures, and vexations, than it is for a General to rejoice, while his wounds are dressing, though with much sensible pain, which are the memorial of a glorious victory. All the pains and asperities of temporal affliction, unto a heart fastened to the Cross of Christ, 
Act. 5.41.  (in which posture there is an actual triumph) are but such smarts, and pungencies, as the body of a Conqueror may feel in his hurts, while his mind is elevated with a superior Joy and Delectation.  
There may be such a present dolorousnesse in the senses of those victorious sufferers, while their spirits are going rejoicing with the Apostles, in these stripes, which their persons resent; for Saint Paul the great Doctor in consorting this suavity and asperity, telleth us, 
Heb. 12.11.  All discipline for the present truly seemeth not to be of joy but sorrow, but afterward it will render to them who are exercised by it, most peaceable fruit of justice. Therefore a Christian who liveth by faith more nobly then by sense, rests not upon what he feeleth, but passeth on to what he believeth and hopeth, 
2 Cor. 4.18 The things that are seen are temporal, but these that are not seen are eternal.  considering that Temporalia sunt quae videntur, quae autem non videntur aterna. Me thinks Job upon his triumphal arch raised upon the consumption and ashes of all his temporalities, prefigureth to us the estate, and directeth the course of a Christian, He hath set me as it were a proverb for the common people, and the just shall hold his way, and with clean hands shall add strength.  
These contrarietyes must be expected, yet this rectitude in the way, and this proficiency in the advance, must be endeavoured, and by those, gaining upon ourselves, we attain to that joy which our Saviour hath promised, none shall take from us, for our King hath associated two things, more incompatible in the state of our nature, than the Emp. Merva was so much celebrated for, in the state of civil regiment, which was, that he had conjoined two things before his time insociable, Empire and Liberty; But our Prince of peace, hath consociated even the sword and peace, for he professeth he came to separate the nearest alliances of nature, and yet to confederate joy and sorrow in these separations. And this capacity imparted to our nature of rejoicing and suffering all together, seemeth a resemblance in us, of the ineffable union in him of his Divine and Human natures. For these two operations Angelical and Humane, seem now conjoined in the faculties of man, when he rejoiceth as if he were an Angel, while he suffereth as a Man.  
This concordancy hath Christ made between these two antipathies of joy and sorrow, by that power which joined himself to us, in such a sort, as no mortal shall ever conceive the manner of it. And the same power, giveth us this capacity, of issuing as it were out of ourselves, in such a kind, as we cannot comprehend that virtue, by which we are thus enabled to joy, and sorrow in the same conjuncture. But though we do not conceive fully the virtue by which we act, we are clearly informed of what we are to endeavour, in all distresses never so averse to our nature; for where he, whom we believe equal to God, returned him thanks, and praises for all his crosses and passions, we who are but worms and dust, cannot doubt how we are to comport ourselves in our chastisements and corrections, under the hand of our Creator.  
The Apostle in these instructions given to the Roman Catholics for their behaviour in persecution, compriseth and summeth up in a few words, all my ratiocinations, Be fervent in spirit, 
Rom. 12.  rejoicing in hope, patience in tribulation, instant in prayer. These are the Wedges, out of which I have by way of expansion drawn all the leaf-gold, which I have laid upon these sheets, out of which every one of you may take stuff enough to gild over his Cross; and now I present you with the bars themselves out of which each of you may draw that fire-tryed gold, which the Angel counselleth them to buy, that would be made rich. For as the prince of the Apostles saith of these same dispositions, and in little differing terms, 
2 Pet. 1.8.  If these things be present with you, and abound, they shall make you not vacant, not without fruit in the knowledge of our Lord JESUS CHRIST.  
And you will please to remember, that I have marked you out the way of having this presence and abundance of these graces and endowments by fervent and indeficient prayer, which openeth the ears of even the unjust judge, and much more his, who hath given us this expedient for all our releefs, 
Luk. 18.2. It behoveth always to pray and not to be weary. 1 Thes. 5.16.  Oportet semper orare, & non deficere, so that this precept of our righteous judge, and merciful master, cannot be too much iterated, and urged upon you in this time of your tentation. And certainly Saint Paul's Rejoice always, and his Pray always, are fitly set together, for they are Correlatives, prayer being the father, and joy the son. In this life our necessities require continual supplies, and in the other life where we shall know no want, these two shall change their relations, joy shall be the parent and prayer the issue; for there the fullness of joy shall beget perpetual prayer, whereas here the abundance of prayer, is it, that produceth a continuation of joy.  
It is prayer then that is the anchor of our joy in this world, 
Heb. 6.19.  which may be fastened to the inner part of the veil, where Jesus the precursor is entered; he hath left us this anchor to cast upwards, to stay our peace in all afflictions, and storms of this sea we sail up and down in for a while, and if in any calm of spirit we lessen our prayer, we do but as if in fair weather, a Ship should cut off her anchors, confiding in the continuance of this serenity, and consequently it can be no less than desperateness, not to be very instant, and intentive in prayer in the foul weather of persecution. This prescription then of the Apostle, is the most sovereign that can be ministered to your exigencies, 
2 Tim. 8.2. I will therefore that men pray in every place, lifting up pure hands without anger or altercation  Volo ergo vires orare in omni loco, levantes puras manus sine irâ, & disceptations. When your hands are thus lifted up to Heaven, the Amalekites are easilyer defeated, then while they are retorting back their own darts of malices, and animosities.  
Whereupon David in his Canticle of resurrection, wherein he acknowledgeth his marvelous restaurations, assigneth all to the virtue of Prayer, saying, 
Psal. 65.19.20.  Therefore hath God heard, and attended to the voice of my Petition. Blessed be God, who hath not removed my Prayer, and his mercy from me. Upon which words Saint Augustine gives us this rule, That as long as we find not our Prayer removed from us, we may be sure God's mercy is not far from us; for God doth often misericordiously deny our prayers, that are in order to temporal relief, as the Physician knoweth better than the Patient, what may be conveniently granted him; but while he giveth us this perseverance, he bestoweth his will upon us, which must needs be better than our own; it may be we beg a serpent, and he giveth us bread infallibly, when he inspireth this indeficiency in Prayer.  
Wherefore in resemblance of Saint Augustine's excellent ejaculation of Lord give what you command, and command what you please, I will propose to you this adjunction, in the unsuccessfulness of all your petitions, Lord be pleased not to deny us the persistence in Prayer, and deny us what you please of our prayers. This is then the universal remedy I humbly offer to all your wounds or distempers exterior or intrinsike, the constant application of Prayer, which is as the Spirit to the body of Religion, whereof no violence can interrupt the exercise, which I shall leave recommended to you with this testimony of the holy Spirit, 
Prov 31.29. Many daughters have gathered together riches, thou hast passed them all.  very appliable to the prerogatives of Prayer, Multae filiae congregaverunt divitias, tu supergressa es universas.  
Upon the premission of all these principles of Christianity, I may justly charge you with this injunction of Saint Paul to his brethren upon the same occasion, 
Heb. 12.12  For the which cause stretch up the slacked hands, and the lose knees and make strait steps to your feet, that no man halting, err, but rather be healed. Cast off then all faintness, and pusillanimity, let not your hearts hang down as oppressed with that weight, which groweth the lighter, the more your hands are elevated and lifted to heaven. And nothing is more opposed to the cure of your hurts, than this halting the Apostle dissuadeth, to wit, the favouring of your nature in that part it is offended by the world, still leaning and swaying your thoughts towards the desires of temporal restitutions, towards animosities to enemies, and limping a little between repining and resignation. These are the haltings, in which our nature seemeth to ease herself; but in effect, this is but to favour a sore part, by which tenderness we may suffer the nerves to contract, and the members may be by degrees rendered useless, by this error of indulgence.  
For this cause we are advised to make our steps strait, to tread confidently in the vestiges and footsteps of our Saviour, who, 
Heb. 12.2.  joy being proposed to him, sustained the Cross, and the power of walking upon the same waters, is denied to none, who have faith enough to tread confidently upon them, when they are called to come to him, in those his paths of many waters. He who hath bid us all take up our Cross and follow him, cannot be answered, 
John 14.5  Lord we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way? For we know he hath entered into his glory this way, and hath set our glory at the end of the same passage, wherein not only his precedency guideth us, but the concomitancy of his grace and virtue supporteth and carrieth us, and that the easilyer, the more we lean upon them.  
Therefore turn not your heads awry out of this narrow way, to look upon the broad flowery passages of sinners, but making strait steps in your own tract, follow your glorious Crosse-bearer, crying to him with the Psalmist, 
Psal. 93.12, 13.  Blessed is the man whom thou shalt instruct, O Lord, and shalt teach out of thy Law, that thou mayst give him quietness from the evil days, till a pit be digged for the sinner. There is a Mine digging under all the rosy banks of full blown prosperity, and it is not our parts to know the times, or moments of Gods springing this mine. Let it be then your application, to draw as many as you can by your prayers from under this hollow ground they are walking, and building on, and not your study to calculate, or prognostike the day of their destruction. This you may be assured of from the mouth of the Prophet, and compassionate their sentence, in comparison of your present sufferings, Upon the ground of my people shall thorns and briars come up, how much more upon all the houses of the City rejoicing? You may therefore rejoice, 
Esay 32.13.  that you are but scratched a little by those thorns and briars, while others are in danger to have their roses and flowers turned into the fuel of eternal flames.  
O then, how much more are you to be accounted blessed, upon whom is entailed that inheritance incorruptible, and incontaminate, conserved in the heavens, Wherein you shall rejoice, 
1 Pet. 1.6, 7.  a little now if you must be made heavy in divers tentations; that the probation of your faith, much more precious than gold (which is proved by the fire) may be found unto praise and glory, and honour in the revelation of JESUS CHRIST. Therefore in all the provocations of these times, either by our personal distresses, or by the contumelies, and exprobrations of your religion, let your spirits answer the reluctant impulses of your sensitive nature, 
2 Tim. 1.2 I suffer these things, but I am not confounded, for I know whom I have believed, & I am sure that he is able to keep my deposit unto that day. Apoc. 13.10 Apo. 22.11  with this reply of the Apostle, and Master of the Gentiles, Haec patior sed non confundor, scio enim cui credidi, & certus sum quia potens est servare depositum meum in illum diem; remembering always, that there is no promise but upon fidelity even unto death. Here is, as Saint John saith, The patience, and the faith of Saints, which expecteth God's time for all mutations, and until that fullness of time be come, we must acquiesce to what the Angel signified to Saint John, and you may take it for an instruction apposite to these times, He that hurteth let him hurt yet, and he that is in filth let him be filthy yet, and he that is just, let him be justified yet; and let the holy be sanctified yet. And these two effects, are consequents of one another, for the impiety of the unrighteous, is raised by their exercising and perfecting pious patients whose sanctity is refined by the others inquination.  
God's wisdom maketh use of all evils, which he permitteth but to extract goods, and so alloweth all vicissitudes their times, until he Who is the first, and the last, cometh to render to every man according to his works. Wherefore doing good let us not fail, for in due time we shall reap, not failing: Let this be then your consolation in all that displeaseth you, that it proceedeth from his order, who can be pleased with nothing, but what is just. Having thus summed up all the parcels, and fractions of these lines, I shall seal the total with this signet of our Apostle, and Doctor of all sufferers, glorious Saint Paul, 
Gal. 6.9.  Thanks be to God, who hath given us the victory by our Lord JESUS CHRIST. 
1 Cor. 15.57.58.  Therefore my beloved brethren, be stable, and unmoveable, abounding in the work of our Lord always, knowing that your labour is not in vain in our Lord.  
Now me thinks, upon my delivery of this masculine issue of Catholic Religion, the throes of my labour may be easily forgot; but there is a harder work belonging to this birth, which is to christian it with sincere humility, the Sacrament, as I may call it, that entereth all these sorts of children into that Covenant, whereby they become acceptable to God, as being marked with the Character of Christ's spirit and disposition, who sought not his own glory in any of his works, and hath left this rule, 
John. 7.18  He that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, he is true, and injustice in him there is not. Wherefore in all humbleness raising my heart, and bending my knees to the original Crucifix, upon whose image I now fix mine eyes, I lay myself, and this issue of my spirit at his feet, unfeignedly acknowledging the first motion of this design, to have issued from his holy suggestion to me, a particular zeal for the procuring you some comfort in these times of your destitutions of all ordinary succours, and the abundance of extraordinary tentations.  
I humbly therefore praise his goodness, in this choice of me the youngest of his house, to blow these sparkles of consolation among you, rising from that coal, wherewith he hath been pleased to touch my lips: and in a true sense of his mercy, and my own meanness, I ought not to believe any thing I have written in this work, so worthy the offering up to God, as what I have not writ in it, which is my name. This manner of consumption, and annihilation of self-regard, may breathe out some odour of humility, which is like to be of better savour than any other quality of the oblation.  
If now then I most humbly offer up to the honour of his holy Spirit all my propriety in this labour, that the work thus consecrated may have this property of an host, the having no longer any owner but God's name, and that by this means, there may be no thoughts shed upon the author, by the way, but the whole praise and glory may pass up directly and entirely to the holy Spirit, the Father of lights, from whom all good gifts descend, this is the greatest contribution I can bring, towards the obtaining a blessing upon this work; that by the immediate and single glory which you render to God, in acknowledging to him this solicitude for your necessities, he may be moved to give the greater efficacy to these administrations of comfort. Cast then I beseech you, your thoughts, at least upon such an object as my eyes are now fixed upon, and looking on the Author of faith, 
Heb. 12.1  and the consummator Christ Jesus, who, joy being proposed to him, sustained the Cross, contemning confusion. Let me beseech you to join with me in this Petition to him, for a blessing upon my labours, and his promised beatitude upon your sufferances.  

A Prayer to CHRIST, represented by a Crucifix.  
GRacious Lord Jesus, casting our eyes and thoughts upon your Cross, and considering how by your own disfiguring, you have repaired in us the image we had defaced, of our creation, we may joyfully accept this image of our Redemption, stamped upon us by our present Crosses, whereby we are conformed to you crucified, and so entitled to that similitude we may expect, by but looking upon you glorified. O! let this present object, have in some degree such an operation, and make us like you upon the Cross, by looking on you in that distressed exposure, that we may derive now from that sight, these virtues of Patience, Humility, and Charity somewhat perfected, as we shall then partake Joy, Glory and Love, consummated by that other vision of you. Glorious Lord Jesus, who are now risen from this throne of your humility, to that of your Majesty, give us leave to challenge this your promise, of drawing all things after you, when you were thus exalted; be pleased then to draw our humility and fidelity after yours, that they may extend even unto death; that when we find any natural reluctancy against our crosses and humiliations, we may feel a more powerful attraction of our conformity after your precedency. O! we have no excuse left, when we look upon your hands, stretched out upon the Cross in an equal expansion on both sides, to active, and passive Charity; the one extended to the relief of the necessities of others, the other reached forth to the toleration of all their injuries, whom you were relieving, encompassing thus the whole globe of Charity. Be pleased O Lord to fasten us in this manner unto the Cross with you, that being perfect Crucifixes in our dispositions, as well as in our disfigurements by the World, we may have the nearer configuration to your image; when we shall no longer need to labour a likeness to you, but the very seeing you, shall transform us into the same similitude. Grant then O Lord while we are in this laborious resemblance of you, that the character of your patience may be as visible upon us, as that of your passion, and that our enemies by the virtue of our wants, may be relieved in their own necessities; while our prayers growing the richer by our patience, we may the better purchase their remissions. This effect was a grace pertaining to your Cross, which we humbly beg, may in some measure be conferred on ours; that upon this ladder we may scale heaven ourselves, and open the gates to our enemies. These were the consequences of your Cross, and we may (become one Spirit with you by our adherence to you) submissively plead, for some such resultancies from our sufferings, that being enabled by your grace, to say with you, that we have glorified God upon earth, and consummated the work that was appointed us, we may expect our presentation from you unto the glorious Trinity, in the list of those that are come out of great tribulation, and having abundance of tears in our eyes to wipe off, when we come to be led by the Lamb, to the fountains of the Water of life, the plenty of these waters have stood here in our eyes, may fill our vessels the fuller of those celestial springs. Be pleased then O Lamb of God that we may follow you now so faithfully, through the streets of earthly Jerusalem, without clamour, or contention, as we may be qualifide for our following you wheresoever you go, in that heavenly city, where our duty, and our delight will be incessant acclamations of your glory, which shall be answered by a continual replication of our own Beatitude. In the mean time, grant that the meekness and humility of our spirits, under our crosses, may extol the virtue of your cross, and the praises of your Catholic Church, over which the gates of hell shall never prevail, and the which only, shall prevail, upon the gates of Heaven.  Haec est victoria quae vincit mundum, 
1 Joh. 5.4  fides nostra. Quia propter te mortificamur totâ die, 
Rom. 8.36.  astimati su●●●● sicut oves occisionis, sed in his omnibus superamus propter cum qui dilexi● nos.   
FINIS,   

Faults escaped, correct thus.  
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