ence to the Divine commandments. For though | ments of devotion, as devotion is of love, therefore love were 66 stronger than death," yet obedience was we find God hath made great expressions of his stronger than love, and made a rare dispute in the acceptance of such dispositions. And women, and spirits of those holy women, in which the flesh and less knowing persons, and tender dispositions, and the spirit were not the litigants, but the spirit and pliant natures, will make up a greater number in the spirit; and they resisted each other, as the angel- heaven, than the severe, and wary, and inquiring guardian of the Jews resisted the tutelar angel of people, who sometimes love because they believe, Persia, each striving who should with most love and ❘ and believe because they can demonstrate, but never zeal perform their charge, and God determined. believe because they love. When a great underAnd so he did here too. For the law of the sabbath standing and a great affection meet together, it was then a Divine commandment; and although makes a saint great like an apostle; but they do not piety to the dead, and to such a dead, was ready to well, who make abatement of their religious pasforce their choice to do violence to their will, bear- sions by the severity of their understanding. It is ing them up on wings of desire to the grave of the no matter by which we are brought to Christ, so we Lord, yet at last they reconciled love with obedience. love him and obey him; but if the production admit For they had been taught, that love is best expressed of degrees, that instrument is the most excellent in keeping of the Divine commandments. But now which produces the greatest love and although they were at liberty; and sure enough they made discourse, and a sober spirit, be in itself the best, use of its first minute: and going so early to seek yet we do not always suffer that to be a parent of as Christ, they were sure they should find him. great religion as the good women make their fancy, their softness, and their passion. 10. The angels descended guardians of the sepulchre; for God sent his guards too, and they affrighted the watch appointed by Pilate and the priests but when the women came, they spake like comforters, full of sweetness and consolation, laying aside their affrighting glories, as knowing it is the will of their Lord, that they should minister good to them that love him. But a conversation with angels could not satisfy them, who came to look for the Lord of the angels, and found him not: and when the Lord was pleased to appear to Mary Magdalen, she was so swallowed up with love and sorrow, that she entered into her joy, and perceived it not; she saw the Lord, and knew him not. For so, from the closets of darkness, they that immediately stare upon the sun, perceive not the beauties of the light, and feel nothing but amazement. But the voice of the Lord opened her eyes, and she knew him, and worshipped him, but was denied to touch him, and commanded to tell the apostles: for therefore God ministers to us comforts and revelations, not that we may dwell in the sensible fruition of them ourselves alone, but that we communicate the grace to others. But when the other women were returned and saw the Lord, then they were all together admitted to the embracement, and to kiss the feet of Jesus. For God hath his opportunities and periods, which at another time he denies; and we must then rejoice in it when he vouchsafes it, and submit to his Divine will when he denies it. : 11. These good women had the first fruits of the apparition for their forward love, and the passion of their religion, made greater haste to entertain a grace, and was a greater endearment of their persons to our Lord, than a more sober, reserved, and less active spirit. This is more safe, but that is religious; this goes to God by the way of understanding, that by the will; this is supported by discourse, that by passions; this is the sobriety of the apostles, the other was the zeal of the holy women; and because a strong fancy and an earnest passion, fixed upon holy objects, are the most active and forward instru b Majus est, peccatorem ex peccato in gratiam migrare, quàm ex hoc mundo in cœlum.-S. AUGUST. 12. Our blessed Lord appeared next to Simon: and though he and John ran forth together, and St. John outran Simon, although Simon Peter had denied and forsworn his Lord, and St. John never did, and followed him to his passion and his death; yet Peter had the favour of seeing Jesus first. Which some spiritual persons understand as a testi, mony that penitent sinners have accidental eminences and privileges sometimes indulged to them beyond the temporal graces of the just and innocent, as being such who not only need defensatives against the remanent and inherent evils even of repented sins, and their aptnesses to relapse; but also because those who are true penitents, who understand the infiniteness of the Divine mercy, and that for a sinner to pass from death to life, from the state of sin into pardon and the state of grace, is a greater gift, and a more excellent and improbable mutation, than for a just man to be taken into glory, -out of gratitude to God, and endearment for so great a change, added to fear of returning to such danger and misery, will re-enforce all their industry, and double their study, and observe more diligently, and watch more carefully, and "redeem the time," and make amends for their omissions, and oppose a good to the former evils, beside the duties of the present employment; and then, commonly, the life of a holy penitent is more holy, active, zealous, and impatient of vice, and more rapacious of virtue and holy actions, and arises to greater degrees of sanctity, than the even and moderate affections of just persons, who (as our blessed Saviour's expression is) "need no repentance," that is, no change of state, nothing but a perseverance, and an improvement of degrees. "There is more joy in heaven, before the angels of God, over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-nine just persons that need it not:" for, "where sin hath abounded, there doth grace superabound ;" and that makes joy in heaven. 13. The holy Jesus, having received the affections of his most passionate disciples, the women c Luke xv. 7. and St. Peter, puts himself upon the way into the company of two good men going to Emmaus, with troubled spirits and a reeling faith, shaking all its upper building, but leaving some of its foundation firm. To them the Lord discourses of the necessity of the death and resurrection of the Messias, and taught them not to take estimate of the counsels of God by the designs and proportions of man: for God, by ways contrary to human judgment, brings to pass the purposes of his eternal providence. The glories of Christ were not made pompous by human circumstances; his kingdom was spiritual: he was to enter into felicities through the gates of death; he refused to do miracles before Herod, and yet did them before the people; he confuted his accusers by silence, and did not descend from the cross, when they offered to believe in him, if he would; but left them to be persuaded by greater arguments of his power, the miraculous circumstances of his death, and the glories of his resurrection; and, by walking in the secret paths of Divine election, hath commanded us to adore his footsteps, to admire and revere his wisdom, to be satisfied with all the events of providence, and to rejoice in him, if by afflictions he makes us holy, if by persecutions he supports and enlarges his church, if by death he brings us to life; so we arrive at the communion of his felicities, we must let him choose the way; it being sufficient that he is our guide, and our support, and our ceeding great reward." For therefore Christ preached to the two disciples, going to Emmaus, the way of the cross, and the necessity of that passage, that the wisdom of God might be glorified, and the conjectures of man ashamed. But whilst his discourse lasted, they knew him not; but, in the breaking of bread, he discovered himself. For he turned their meal into a sacrament, and their darkness to light; and having to his sermon added the sacrament, opened all their discerning faculties, the eyes of their body, and their understanding too; to represent to us, that when we are blessed with the opportunities of both those instruments, we want no exterior assistance to guide us in the way to the knowing and enjoying of our Lord. 66 ex 14. But the apparitions which Jesus made, were all upon the design of laying the foundation of all christian graces; for the begetting and establishing faith, and an active confidence in their persons, and building them up on the great fundamentals of the religion. And therefore he appointed a general meeting upon a mountain in Galilee, that the number of witnesses might not only disseminate the fame, but establish the article, of the resurrection; for upon that are built all the hopes of a christian; and "if the dead rise not, then are we of all men most miserable," in quitting the present possessions, and entertaining injuries and affronts without hopes of reparation. But we lay two gages in several repositories; the body in the bosom of the earth, the soul in the bosom of God: and as we here live by faith, and lay them down with hope; so the resurrection is a restitution of them both, and a state of re-union. And therefore, although the glory of our spirits, without the body, were joy great enough to make compensation for more than the troubles of all the world; yet, because one shall not be glorified without the other, they being of themselves incomplete substances, and God having revealed nothing clearly concerning actual and complete felicities till the day of judgment, when it is promised our bodies shall rise; therefore it is, that the resurrection is the great article upon which we rely, and which Christ took so much care to prove and ascertain to so many persons, because, if that should be disbelieved with which all our felicities are to be received, we have nothing to establish our faith, or entertain our hope, or satisfy our desires, or make retribution for that state of secular inconveniences, in which, by the necessities of our nature, and the humility and patience of our religion, we are engaged. So 15. But I consider, that holy Scripture only instructs us concerning "the life of this world," and "the life of the resurrection, the life of grace," and "the life of glory," both in the body, that is, a life of the whole man; and whatsoever is spoken of the soul, considers it as an essential part of man, relating to his whole constitution, not as it is of itself an intellectual and separate substance; for all its actions which are separate and removed from the body, are relative and incomplete. Now, because the soul is an incomplete substance, and created in relation to the body, and is but a part of the whole man, if the body were as eternal and incorruptible as the soul, yet the separation of the one from the other would be, as now it is, that which we call "natural death;" and supposing that God should preserve the body for ever, or restore it at the day of judgment to its full substance and perfect organs, yet the man would be dead for ever, if the soul for ever should continue separate from the body. that the other life, that is, the state of resurrection, is a re-uniting soul and body. And although, in a philosophical sense, the resurrection is of the body, that is, a restitution, of our flesh and blood and bones, and is called "resurrection," as the entrance into the state of resurrection may have the denomination of the whole; yet, in the sense of Scripture, the resurrection is the restitution of our life, the renovation of the whole man, the state of re-union; and until that be, the man is not, but he is dead, and only his essential parts are deposited and laid up in trust and, therefore, whatsoever the soul does or perceives in its incomplete condition, is but to it as embalming and honourable funerals to the body, and a safe monument to preserve it in order to a living again; and the felicities of the interval are wholly in order to the next life. And therefore, if there were to be no resurrection, as these intermedial joys should not be at all; so, as they are, they are but relative and incomplete: and therefore all our hopes, all our felicities, depend upon the resurrection; without it we should never be persons, men or women; and then the state of separation could be nothing but a fantasm, trees ever in blossom, never bearing fruit, corn for ever in the blade, eggs always in the shell, a hope eternal, never to pass into fruition, that is, for ever to be deluded, for ever to be miserable. And therefore it was an grace, that he might comply with our infirmities, elegant expression of St. Paul,d "Our life is hid and minister to our needs by instruments even and with Christ in God;" that is, our life is passed proportionate to ourselves; making our brethren into custody, the dust of our body is numbered, and the conduits of his grace, that the excellent effect the spirit is refreshed, visited, and preserved in of the Spirit might not descend upon us, as the law celestial mansions: but it is not properly called a upon mount Sinai, in expresses of greatness and life; for all this while the man is dead, and shall terror, but in earthen vessels, and images of inthen live, when Christ produces this hidden life at firmity: so God manifesting his power in the smallthe great day of restitution. But our faith of all ness of the instrument, and descending to our needs, this article is well wrapped up in the words of St. not only in giving the grace of pardon, but also in John: " Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and the manner of its ministration. And I meditate it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we upon the greatness of this mercy, by comparing know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like this grace of God, and the blessing of the judgment him, for we shall see him as he is." The middle and sentence we receive at the hand of the church, state is not it which Scripture hath propounded to with the judgment which God makes at the hour of our faith, or to our hope; the reward is then when death upon them, who have despised this mercy, Christ shall appear: but, in the mean time, the soul and neglected all the other parts of their duty. The can converse with God and with angels, just as the one is a judgment of mercy, the other of vengeance: holy prophets did in their dreams, in which they in the one the devil is the accuser, and heaven and received great degrees of favour and revelation. earth bear witness; in the other, the penitent sinner But this is not to be reckoned any more than an accuses himself: in that, the sinner gets a pardon; entrance or a waiting for the state of our felicity. in the other, he finds no remedy: in that, all his And since the glories of heaven is the great fruit of good deeds are remembered and returned, and his election, we may consider that the body is not pre- sins are blotted out; in the other, all his evil deeds destinate, nor the soul, alone, but the whole man; are represented with horror and a sting, and remain and, until the parts embrace again in an essential for ever in the first, the sinner changes his state complexion, it cannot be expected either of them for a state of grace, and only smarts in some temporal should receive the portion of the predestinate. But austerities and acts of exterior mortification; in the the article and the event of future things is rarely second, his temporal estate is changed to an eternity set in order by St. Paul : "But ye are come unto of pain in the first, the sinner suffers the shame the mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, of one man or one society, which is sweetened by the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable consolation, and homilies of mercy and health; in company of angels, to the general assembly and the latter, all his sins are laid open before all the church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, world, and himself confounded in eternal amazement and to God, the Judge of all;" and then follows, and confusions in the judgment of the church, the after this "general assembly," after "the Judge of sinner is honoured by all for returning to the all" appears, 66 to the spirits of just men made per- bosom of his mother, and the embraces of his fect;" that is, re-united to their bodies, and entering heavenly Father; in the judgment of vengeance, he into glory. The beginning of the contrary opinion is laughed at by God, and mocked by accursed brought some new practices and appendant persua- spirits, and perishes without pity in this, he is sions into the church, or at least promoted them prayed for by none, helped by none, comforted by much. For those doctors, who, receding from the none, and he makes himself a companion of devils primitive belief of this article, taught that the to everlasting ages; but in the judgment of repentglories of heaven are fully communicated to the ance and tribunal of the church, the penitent sinner souls before the day of judgment, did also upon that is prayed for by a whole army of militant saints, and stock teach the invocation of saints, whom they be- causes joy to all the church triumphant. And to lieved to be received into glory, and insensibly also establish this tribunal in the church, and to transmit brought in the opinion of purgatory, that the less pardon to penitent sinners, and a salutary judgment perfect souls might be glorified in the time that upon the person and the crime, and to appoint phythey assigned them. But the safer opinion, and more sicians and guardians of the soul, was one of the agreeable to piety, is that which I have now describ- designs and mercies of the resurrection of Jesus. ed from Scripture and the purest ages of the church. And let not any christian men, either by false opinion, or an unbelieving spirit, or an incurious apprehension, undervalue or neglect this ministry, which Christ hath so sacredly and solemnly established. Happy is he that dashes his sins against the rock upon which the church is built; that the church, gathering up the planks and fragments of the shipwreck, and the shivers of the broken heart, may re-unite them, pouring oil into the wounds 16. When Jesus appeared to the apostles, he gave them his peace for a benediction; and when he departed, he left them peace for a legacy, and gave them, according to two former promises, the power of making peace, and reconciling souls to God by a ministerial act; so conveying his Father's mercy, which himself procured by his passion, and actuates by his intercession and the giving of his d Coloss. iii. 3. e 1 John iii. 2. ! Οταν ἐν τῷ ὑπνοῦν καθ ̓ ἑαυτὴν γενήσεται ἡ ψυχὴ, τότε τὴν ἰδίαν ἀπολαβοῦσα φύσιν, προμαντεύεται τέ καὶ προαγορεύει τὰ μέλλοντα. Τοιαύτη δέ ἐστι καὶ ἐν τῷ κατὰ τὸν θάνατον χαρίζεσθαι τῶν σωμάτων.-ARIST. apud Sextum made by the blows of sin, and restoring with meekness, gentleness, care, counsel, and authority, persons overtaken in a fault. For that act of ministry is not ineffectual, which God hath promised shall be ratified in heaven; and that authority is not contemptible, which the holy Jesus conveyed by breathing upon his church the Holy Ghost. But Christ intended that those, whom he had made guides of our souls, and judges of our consciences in order to counsel and ministerial pardon, should also be used by us in all cases of our souls, and that we go to heaven the way he hath appointed, that is, by offices and ministries ecclesiastical. 17. When our blessed Lord had so confirmed the faith of the church, and appointed an ecclesiastical ministry, he had but one work more to do upon earth, and that was the institution of the holy sacrament of baptism, which he ordained as a solemn initiation and mysterious profession of the faith, upon which the church is built; making it a solemn publication of our profession, the rite of stipulation or entering covenant with our Lord, the solemnity of the paction evangelical, in which we undertake to be disciples to the holy Jesus; that is, to believe his doctrine, to fear his threatenings, to rely upon his promises, and to obey his commandments all the days of our life; and he, for his part, actually performs much, and promises more; he takes off all the guilt of our preceding days, purging our souls, and making them clean, as in the day of innocence; promising withal, that if we perform our undertaking, and remain in the state in which he now puts us, he will continually assist us with his Spirit, prevent and attend us with his grace; he will deliver us from the power of the devil; he will keep our souls in merciful, joyful, and safe custody, till the great day of the Lord; he will then raise our bodies from the grave; he will make them to be spiritual and immortal; he will re-unite them to our souls, and beatify both bodies and souls in his own kingdom, admitting them into eternal and unspeakable glories. All which that he might verify and prepare respectively, in the presence of his disciples he ascended into the bosom of God, and the eternal comprehensions of celestial glory. b Mark xvi. 16. Acts ii. 38. xxii. 16. Rom. vi. 3, 4. Eph. iv. 5 &c. 1 Cor. xii. 13. Coloss. ii. 13. Gal. iii. 17. 1 Pet. iii. 21. THE PRAYER. O holy and eternal Jesus, who hast overcome death, and triumphed over all the powers of hell, darkness, sin, and the grave; manifesting the truth of thy promises, the power of thy divinity, the majesty of thy person, the rewards of thy glory, and the mercies and excellent designs of thy evangelical kingdom, by thy glorious and powerful resurrection; preserve my soul from eternal death, and make me to rise from the death of sin, and to live the life of grace; loving thy perfections, adoring thy mercy, pursuing the interest of thy kingdom; being united to the church, under thee our Head; conforming to thy holy laws; established in faith, entertained and confirmed with a modest, humble, and certain hope, and sanctified by charity; that I, engraving thee in my heart, and submitting to thee in my spirit, and imitating thee in thy glorious example, may be partaker of thy resurrection; which is my hope and my desire, the support of my faith, the object of my joy, and the strength of my confidence. In thee, holy Jesus, do I trust: I confess thy faith, I believe all that thou hast taught; I desire to perform all thy injunctions, and my own undertaking my soul is in thy hand; do thou support and guide it, and pity my infirmities; and when thou shalt reveal thy great day, show to me the mercies and effects of thy advocation, and intercession, and redemption. "Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God; for in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded." Thou art just, thou art merciful, thou art gracious and compassionate; thou hast done miracles and prodigies of favour, to me and all the world. Let not those great actions and sufferings be ineffective; but make me capable and receptive of thy mercies, and then I am certain to receive them. I am thine, O save me! thou art mine, O holy Jesus! O dwell with me for ever, and let me dwell with thee, adoring and praising the eternal glories of God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. 1 Matt. xxviii. 20. “ΑΓΙΟΣ ΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ. CONTEMPLATIONS OF THE STATE OF MAN, IN THIS LIFE AND IN THAT WHICH IS TO COME. TO THE READER. COURTEOUS READER, I HAVE Soberly considered these holy and devout " Contemplations of the State of Man in this Life, and in that which is to come;" I never read any thing with more comfort, or which made a greater impression upon my soul. Therefore, hoping they may have the like effect upon others, I commend them to all persons, who desire happiness in this life, or blessedness in the future. Here thou mayest see the uncertainty of mortal life, the instability of human greatness, the fate of kingdoms, and the period of empires; the world's funeral, time laid in the dust, and the dread and horror of the last judgment. Here thou mayest have a prospect of the grandeur of heaven, the glory of the blessed, and the miseries and infelicities of the damned. The due consideration whereof will beget in thee holiness of life; nothing can be of more consequence, in these worst of days, to promote thy future happiness and glory. True piety sows the seeds of the most solid greatness. Men endowed with moral virtues, they are like diamonds, rich but unpolished; it is the fear of God that adds the true lustre, and sets them fair. In the service of God, all the items of happiness and blessedness are summed up. Dost thou desire riches? Serve God, and thou canst never be poor. Dost thou desire preferment? Live a holy and devout life, (as these Contemplations are the best introduction to it,) and thou shall go àñò xáρiros εis dóžav, from grace to glory; grace is "Aurora gloriæ;" glory, nothing but a bright constellation of graces; and happiness, nothing but the quintessence of holiness. I shall not detain thee longer, but beg of God that these holy Contemplations may so influence thy soul, that thou mayest be made partaker of that eternal weight of glory, which is laid up for all those that love and serve him. I am thy Friend, and TO THE READER. Servant in Christ Jesus, B. HALE, D. D. CANDID READER, THE most learned and pious JEREMY TAYLOR, D.D., late Lord Bishop of Down and Connor, in Ireland, having left these holy Contemplations in the hands of a worthy friend of his, with a full purpose to have printed them, if he had lived; but since it hath pleased God to take that devout and holy person to himself, the better to advance devotion and sanctity of life, and to make men less in love with this frail life, and more with that which is eternal, it is thought fit to make them public. I beseech God to conduct us all, by the many helps and assistances which he hath been graciously pleased to afford us, to further us in piety and holiness of life, is the prayer of Thy Friend, ROBERT HARRIS. |