ture which knows no conjunctions but those of love and duty, knew that the piety of her soul and the religion of her chaste purposes was a great imitator of angelical purity, and therefore perceived where the philosophy of her question did consist; and being taught of God, declared, that the manner should be as miraculous as the message itself was glorious. For the angel told her, that this should not be done by any way which our sin and the shame of Adam had unhallowed, by turning nature into a blush, and forcing her to a retirement from a public attesting the means of her own preservation; but the whole matter was from God, and so should the manner be. For 'the angel said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall came upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.'

7. When the blessed virgin was so ascertained that she should be a mother and a maid; and that two glories, like the two luminaries of heaven, should meet in her, that she might in such a way become the mother of her Lord, that she might with better advantages be his servant; then all her hopes and all her desires received such satisfaction, and filled all the corners of her heart so much, as indeed it was fain to make room for its reception. But she, to whom the greatest things of religion, and the transportations of devotion, were made familiar by the assiduity and piety of her daily practices, however she was full of joy, yet she was carried like a full vessel, without the violent tossings of a tempestuous passion, or the wrecks of a stormy imagination. And, as the

power of the Holy Ghost did descend upon her like rain into a fleece of wool, without any obstreperous noises or violences to nature, but only the extraordinariness of an exaltation, so her spirit received it with the gentleness and tranquillity fitted for the entertainment of the Spirit of Love, and a quietness symbolical to the Holy Guest of her spotless womb, the Lamb of God; for she meekly replied,Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.' And the angel departed from her, having done his message. And at the same time the Holy Spirit of God did make her to conceive in her womb the immaculate Son of God, the Saviour of the world.

AD. SECTION I.

Considerations upon

the Annunciation of the blessed Mary, and the Conception of the Holy Jesus.

1. THAT which shines brightest presents itself first to the eye; and the devout soul, in the chain of excellent and precious things which are represented in the counsel, design, and first beginnings of the work of our redemption, hath not leisure to attend the twinkling of the lesser stars, till it hath stood and admired the glory and eminencies of the divine love, manifested in the incarnation of the Word eternal. God hath no necessity, in order to the conservation or the heightening his own felicity, but out of mere and perfect charity, and the bowels of compassion, sent into the world his only Son for remedy to human miseries, to ennoble our nature by an union with divinity, to sanctify it

with his justice, to enrich it with his grace, to in struct it with his doctrine, to fortify it with his ex ample, to rescue it from servitude, to assert it into the liberty of the sons of God, and at last to make it partaker of a beatifical resurrection.

2. God, who in the infinite treasures of his wisdom and providence could have found out many other ways for our redemption than the incarnation of his Eternal Son, was pleased to choose this, not only that the remedy by man might have proportion to the causes of our ruin, whose introduction and intromission was by the prevarication of man ; but also that we might with freer dispensation reIceive the influences of a Saviour with whom we communicate in nature. Although Abana and Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, were of greater name and current, yet they were not so salutary as the waters of Jordan to cure Naaman's leprosy. And, if God had made the remedy of human nature to come all the way clothed in prodigy, and every instance of its execution had been as terrible, affrighting, and as full of majesty as the apparitions upon Mount Sinai, yet it had not been so useful and complying to human necessities, as was the descent of God to the susception of human nature, whereby (as in all medicaments) the cure is best wrought by those instruments which have the fewest dissonances to our temper, and are the nearest to our constitution. For thus the Saviour alluring, full of invi

of the world became humane, tation, and the sweetnesses of love, exemplary, humble, and medicinal.

3. And if we consider the reasonableness of the thing, what can be given more excellent for the redemption of man, than the blood of the Son of

God? And what can more ennoble our nature, than that by the means of his holy humanity it was taken up into the cabinet of the mysterious Trinity? What better advocate could we have for us, than him that is appointed to be our Judge? And what greater hopes of reconciliation can be imagined, than that God, in whose power it is to give an absolute pardon, hath taken a new nature, entertained an office, and undergone a life of poverty, with a purpose to procure our pardon? For now, though as the righteous Judge he will judge the nations righteously; yet by the susception of our nature, and its appendant crimes, he is become a party; and having obliged himself as man, as he is God, he will satisfy, by putting the value of an infinite merit to the actions and sufferings of his humanity. And if he had not been God, he could not have given us remedy; if he had not been man, we should have wanted the excellency of example.

4. And till now human nature was less than that of angels; but by the incarnation of the Word was to be exalted above the cherubims; yet the archangel Gabriel being dispatched in embassy, to represent the joy and exaltation of his inferior, instantly trims his wings with love and obedience, and hastens with this narrative to the holy virgin. And if we should reduce our prayers to action, and do God's will on earth as the angels in heaven do it, we should promptly execute every part of the divine will, though it were to be instrumental to the exaltation of a brother above ourselves; knowing no end but conformity to the divine will, and making simplicity of intention to be the fringes and exterior borders of our garments.

5. When the eternal God meant to stoop so low as to be fixed to our centre, he chose for his mother an holy person and a maid, but yet affianced to a just man, that he might not only be secure in the innocency, but also provided for in the reputation of his holy mother: teaching us, that we must not only satisfy ourselves in the purity of our purposes and hearty innocence, but that we must provide also things honest in the sight of all men, being free from the suspicion and semblances of evil; so making provision for private innocence and public honesty it being necessary, in order to charity and edification of our brethren, that we hold forth no impure flames or smoking firebrands, but pure and trimmed lamps, in the eyes of all the world.

6. And yet her marriage was more mysterious: for as, besides the miracle, it was an eternal honour and advancement to the glory of virginity, that he chose a virgin for his mother; so it was in that manner attempered, that the virgin was betrothed, lest honourable marriage might be disreputed and seem inglorious by a positive rejection from any participation of the honour. Divers of the old doctors, from the authority of Ignatius, add another reason, saying, that the blessed Jesus was therefore born of a woman betrothed, and under the pretence of marriage, that the devil, who knew the Messias was to be born of a virgin, might not expect him there, but so be ignorant of the person, till God had served many ends of providence upon him.

7. The angel in his address needed not to go in inquisition after a wandering fire, but knew she

'Origin. Homil. vi. in Levit. Hier. Comment. in 1 Matt. S. Basilius, et alii.