A missive of consolation sent from Flanders to the Catholikes of England.

An Introduction to the following Discourse.

WHen Saint Paul (our Christian Hercules) had enumerated so many of his private la∣bours, * 1.1 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 e∣steem all personall pressures, * 1.2 but as the out-works of charity; and so quitting ea quae extrinsecus sunt, when he will glory in the strength of his charity, he setteth it out in his care and solicitude for the Churches di∣stresses, and so maketh Quis infirmatur, & ego non in∣firmor? quis scandalizatur, & ego non uror? the ver∣ticall point of the Pyramide of his suffering, and acting charity, which remaineth as an entire monument of his glory, after the ruine of all theirs, whose persecutions e∣rected it, and raised it to that sublimity of virtue.

And if our Charities have such an analogie with S. Pauls, as our vocations have, and our zeale beare as much similitude to his, as the face of our present times doth to his dayes, our part, which seemeth off from the publike stage of persecution, may be admitted as the most sorrowfull and distressing of all other; for surely all exteriour burthens are lighter to our senses, then an interiour solicitude in a publike concernment is to our spirit, especially when it is in relation to the passions of the Church of Christ.

And this is our case, * 1.3 who have solicitudinem Ecclesiae impressed upon our spirit, in an indelible character; so as there is none of your brethrens weaknesses, that doth not make an impression, as the Spouses seale upon our heart, and upon our arme. And it may be, the larger our prison is, the straiter the pressure of it proveth unto us, as it is a restraint upon the exercise of our fun∣ctions, in consolating and ministring personally to you, in this your fiery tryall.

Wherefore our hearts being exempt from this separa∣tion,

they take fire at the flame you are in, and professe, that none of you are scandalized, with whom they doe not burne; insomuch, that the sparkles of that fornace you are in, fly even through the sea upon us. For eve∣ry report of a fresh vexation falne upon you, raiseth and sharpneth the ardour of our fellow-feeling of your tribulations; * 1.4 so that we may say with the Spouse, Aquae multae non potuerunt extinguere charitatem, nec flumina obruent illam, since the fire of your temptations and tryals in England, passeth over seas, and burneth us in Flanders, and there is no matter so apt to take and en∣tertaine 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 cha∣racter of Priesthood upon you, being all obliged to of∣fer up spirituall hoasts of resignation and self-relin∣quishment, and to lay all your naturall senses and ap∣prehensions of your sufferings upon the Altar of the Crosse, in adoration of Gods designe upon you; and thus in conformity to Christ, you are to become your selves both the Priests, and the oblations. For whiles your hearts offer up your selves and your substances to Gods holy judgements, your soules exercise a kind of office of Priesthood upon your bodies and goods, which are the materiall part of the oblation; and by this conse∣crating of your sufferings, they who would exterminate Priesthood in England, shall consecrate as many of these Priests, as they lay their persecuting hand upon; and as they despoile you of your fortunes, * 1.5 they furnish you with the fatter victimes, in the function of this your holy Priesthood, of offering up these spirituall hoasts, ac∣ceptable to God by JESUS CHRIST. Take therfore this order from the Psalmist, * 1.6 Sacrifi∣cate sacrificium justitiae, & sperate in Domine; and by this your meritorious exercise of Catholike Religion, you shall find, I hope, lesse want of the Ministery of our re∣all Priesthood among you, which may be thus supply∣ed, even by your owne necessities, while you make of

all your deprivements, matter of sanctification, by your faithfull acceptance of them; and by this disposition, you enter into those holy Orders of Sacrificers, which Saint Paul gave the Primitive Christians in your cases, while you exhibit your bodies a living hoast, holy, * 1.7 plea∣sing to God.

Nor doth this kind of spirituall sacrificature, claime a lesse precedent then even the Sonne of God; for these were part of the daily Sacrifices he offered his Father while he was upon the earth, his privations, incommo∣dities, and destitutions, his not having so much as a house to put his head in, was in this kind his daily eve∣ning sacrifice, and these his quotidian sufferances, did continually mediate and interpeale for our remissions. You may therefore now be said to be successors of this Priesthood of Christs life, which is, as I may say, a third kind of Priesthood Christ instituted by his life, differing from the old of Aaron, and that of the order of Mel∣chisedec; for it is an offering up to God, the want of bread and wine, for a sacrifice of selfe-resignation. For why may not Christs hunger and thirst, and his other wants and exigencies be fitly said to have instituted this holy order of self-sacrificing and offering up all our temporall distresses to Gods pleasure, in conformity to this quotidian oblation of Christs life? so as those of you, who are not called to that sacerdotall function which Christ exercised in his death, when he was both Priest and Sacrifice, (somewhat like whereunto many of us, have happily by the grace of God, been admit∣ted by Martyrdome) seem all called to this holy order, consecrated by his life, of relinquishing all temporali∣ties, and offering up your daily distresses, as sacrifices to the glory of God and his Church.

And we, who in all humility may say, * 1.8 Pro Christo Le∣gation•• fungimur, being suspended by the violences of these times, from the execution of our commission, ought by all the meanes feisable, seek to transport our discharges to you; and since we cannot import our duties in specie, I have desired by Gods motion, to make thus over to you, some little parcell of our debt.

Saint Paul, when he was poorer then 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, * 1.9 was this coyn of the stamp of the holy Spirit, much patience in tribulations, in ne∣cessities, 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. * 1.10 We then (who are Saint Pauls heires in his office, though not of his personall estate of grace) may likewise lawfully aspire to that benediction of en∣riching others, while we our selves are needy and in∣digent.

To make then a convenient present for you in these your necessities, I may open the tombes of the Martyrs, and Primitive Christians, where so much of this spiritu∣all treasure is inclosed, and draw out from their rich lives and examples a plentifull support for your vertues, in all the oppressions of your fortunes; for Gods pro∣vidence is such towards the reliefe of his necessitous children, as all the wealth which the vessells of election had in them when they were temporally cast away, is not lost, but rather reserved expresly for the succeeding exigences of other times, descending upon the streame of the Churches traditions. And thus out of the wrecks of Martyrs, the chaines of Confessors, and the Testaments of the Fathers, the Church maketh a vast treasure of perswasion, and exemplarity; which duly considered, I may our of this blessed store, present you with sufficient exhortations to patience and longanimity in your pre∣sent practices of true Christianity.

I is the nature of man, in any private affliction, pre∣sently to look over the single table-book of his own con∣science, to try, if by the collation of his actions with his sufferings, he can make a congruous connexion of the sense of Gods justice out of his faults, and his penalty put together. And in common calamities, we straight∣wayes resort to all the Church and State-Books, that lye open to our memory, and revolve them studiously, to

make this coherence between the occasion and the impo∣sition which lieth upon the publike; And when we find nothing satisfactory upon this inquest, then by busie re∣trospection 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 con∣nexion of the sense of the antecedent causes, with the emergent consequences, and we are so fond, to satisfie 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 joyn 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 owne sentence) after the weighing of Gods provocation.

But there are some, * 1.11 who (it may be) do sincerely make this enquiry with the Psalmist, of Domine illumina tene∣bras meas, ut sciam quid desit mihi; and such a search sometimes findeth case in the disquisition of the reasons of Gods judgements, when it enquireth not into the equity of them, but pleadeth for some light, to facilitate a correspondency to Gods designe upon us; but when it is curiosity that rangeth to retrive the order and con∣nexion of causes to events, then commonly this agitation proveth the most laborious part of their perplexity, when they are so earnest in the Pharisees Quous{que} ani∣mam 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 dazle our selves very commonly in that inaccessible light, where Gods providence re∣sides inseparable from his essence.

And I may well presume there are of both these sorts of solicitudes amongst you, and that some with a reve∣rend

zeale to Gods justice, mixed with a naturall desire of some refrigeration in the ardours of these times, do call with the holyest of Kings, * 1.12 Us{que} quo Domine? and others, in some more humane impatience and estuation of spirit, doe 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 reliefe, this part seemeth to belong, Dicit primus, & novissimus, scio tribulationem tuam, * 1.13 & pau pertatem tuam, sed dives es; because patience and conformity to Gods order, in all his imposures on us, is a more reall treasure, then any wee can be despoiled of, by the worlds pillaging. And to the last, which may be a more anxious petition, this other part seemes to be a pertinent reference, Nihil horum time as quae passurus es: esto fidelis us{que} ad mor∣tem, & dabo tibi coronam vitae. This may silence curi∣osity, in the demand of the cause, or the limits of our affliction; since it setteth the terme of our fidelity in suffering, no neerer then the end of our life; so as be∣ing enjoyned not to seek an exemption untill our death, we should enquire 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 animad∣version, which may solve the difficulties of many contro∣verted points in our weak nature concerning affliction, namely, that you are to state your case, as entred 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 Josephs chaine up to his chariot and dominion in Aegypt. The first is, as you are men; the second, as you are Christians; and the third, as you are Catholikes.

Notes

• * 1.1

  2 Cor. 11.13. Nothing beyond.
• * 1.2

  Those things which are externall. Who is weak and I am not weak? who is scanda∣lized and I am not burnt?
• * 1.3

  Solicitude of the Church. Cant. 8.
• * 1.4

  Cant. 8.7. Many wa∣ters cannot quench charity, nor shall floods o∣verwhelm it.
• * 1.5

  1 Pet. 2.6.
• * 1.6

  Psal. 4. Sacrifice ye the sa∣crifice of justice, and hope in our Lord.
• * 1.7

  Rom. 12.1
• * 1.8

  2 Cor. 5.20 We are Le∣gats for Christ.
• * 1.9

  2 Cor. 6.
• * 1.10

  I doe a∣bound ex∣ceedingly in joy in all our tri∣bulation.
• * 1.11

  Psal. 38. O Lord il∣luminate my dark∣nesse, that I may know what is wanting to me.
• * 1.12

  Psal. 88.47. How long O Lord? Job. 10.2. Tell me who thou judgest me so.
• * 1.13

  Apoc. 2.9. I know thy tribulation and thy poverty, but thou art rich. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer, be faithfull untill death, and I will give thee the crown of life.