your name hath been dear and highly honourable amongst the sons and daughters of the church of England; and we no more envy to Hungary the great name of St. Elizabeth, to Scotland the glorious memory of St. Margaret, to France the triumph of the piety of St. Genevieve, nor St. Katharine to Italy, since in your royal person we have so great an example of our own, one of the family of saints, a daughter to such a glorious saint and martyr, a sister to such a king, in the arms of whose justice and wisdom we lie down in safety, having now nothing to employ us, but in holiness and comfort to serve God, and, in peace and mutual charity, to enjoy the blessings of the government under so great, so good a king.

But, Royal Madam, I have yet some more personal ground for the confidence of this address; and because I have received the great honour of your reading and using divers of my books, I was readily invited to hope, that your Royal Highness would not reject it, if one of them desired, upon a special title, to kiss your princely hand, and to pay thanks for the gracious reception of others of the same cognation. The style of it is fit for closets, plain and useful; the matter is of the greatest concernment, a rule for the usage of the greatest solemnity of religion: for as the eucharist is, by the venerable

fathers of the church, called the queen of mysteries; so the worthy communicating in this, is the most princely conjugation of graces in the whole rosary of Christian religion; and, therefore, the more proportioned and fitted for the handling of so princely a person, whom the beauty of the body, and the greatness of birth, and excellency of religion, do equally contend to represent excellent and illustrious in the eyes of all the world.

Madam, it is necessary that you be all that, to which these excellent graces and dispositions do design you and to this glorious end, this manual may, if you please, add some moments; the effecting of which is all my design, except only that it is intended, and I humbly pray that it may be looked upon, as a testimony of that greatest honour, which is paid you by the hearts and voices of all the religious of this church; and particularly of,

MADAM,

Your Highness'

Most humble and most devoted Servant,

JEREMY DUNENSIS.

THE

INTRODUCTION.

WHEN St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin-Mother had, for a time, lost their most holy Son, they sought him in the villages and the highways, in the retinues of their kindred, and the caravans of the Galilean pilgrims; but there they found him not. At last, almost despairing, faint and sick with travel and fear, with desires and tedious expectations, they came into the temple to pray to God for conduct and success; knowing and believing assuredly, that if they could find God, they should not long miss to find the holy Jesus; and their faith deceived them not: for they sought God; and found him, that was God and man, in the midst and circle of the doctors. But being surprised with trouble and wonder, they began a little to expostulate with the divine child, why he would be absent so long, and leave them (as it must needs be when he is absent from us) in sorrow and uncertain thoughts? This question brought forth an answer, which will be for ever useful to all, that shall inquire after this holy child: for as they complained of his absence, so he reproved their ignorance: "How is it that ye have so fondly looked for me, as if I were used to wander in unknown paths without skill, and without a guide? why did ye inquire after me in highways and village-fields? never knew me wander, or lose my way, or abide but where I ought; why, therefore, did ye not come hither to look for me? Did ye not know that I ought to be in my Father's house?" that is, there where God is worshipped, where he

a

Ye

So the Syriac interpreter renders the Greek ἐν τοῖς τοῦ πατρός μου, 4 in the places of my Father: In iis quæ Patris mei sunt,'-so the Arabic version. • In negotiis Patris mei,' in my Father's business,'-so Castalio, Piscator, and our English Bibles. But the second reddition is more agreeable with

loves to dwell, where he communicates his blessing and holy influences: there, and there only, we are sure to meet our dearest Lord.

For this reason, the place of our address to God and holy conversation with him, he is pleased to call his house,' that with confidence we may expect to meet him there, when we go to worship; and when the solemnities of religion were confined to the tabernacle, he therefore made it to be like a house of use and dwelling, that in that figure he might tell us where his delight and his abode would be; and, therefore, God furnished the tabernacle with the utensils of a prophet's room at least, a table and a candlestick; and the table must have dishes and spoons, bowls and covers, belonging to it; the candlesticks must have lamps, and the lamps must be continually burning. And besides this, the house of God must have in it a continual fire, the fire must not go out by night nor day; and to this the prophet alludes: "God hath his fire in Sion, and his hearth, or furnace, in Jerusalem;" and after all, there must be meat in his house too. And as this was done by the sacrifices of old, so, by the Lord's Supper, in the New Testament. So that now it is easy to understand the place and the reason of Christ's abode; even in his Father's house, there where his Father dwells; and loves to meet his servants; there we are sure to find the Lord. For as God descended and came into the tabernacle invested with a cloud, so Christ comes to meet us, clothed with a mystery: he hath a house below as well as above; here is his dwelling, and here are his provisions; here is his fire, and here his meat; hither God sends his Son, and here his Son manifests himself; the church and the holy table of the Lord, the assemblies of saints, and the devotions of his people; the word and the sacrament, the oblation of bread

the words of the Greek, and the first is more consonant to the use of that phrase in the New Testament. So John, xix. 27. St. John received the mother of our Lord, siç rà idia, recepit eam in domum suam;' so Beza and our English translation: he took her to his own house.' And thus St. Chrysostom uses the same phrase, Serm. 52. in Genes. Ποῦ ἀπολαύνεις τὸν δίκαιον; οὐκ οἶσθα ὅτι ὅπου ἂν αὐτὸν ἐπελθεῖν συμβαίνῃ, ἐν τοῖς τοῦ δεσπότου τοῦ ἑαυτοῦ αὐτὸν áváyun; Whither do you drive the just man? Do you not know, that wherever he sets his foot, he is within his Father's house or territory?

O Tarpeie Pater, qui templa secundam Incolis à cœlo sedem.

and wine, and the offering of ourselves, the consecration and the communion, are the things of God, and of Jesus Christ; and he that is employed in these, is there where God loves to be, and where Christ is to be found; in the employments in which God delights, in the ministries of his own choice, in the work of the Gospel, and the methods of grace, in the economy of heaven, and the dispensations of eternal happiness.

And now, that we may know where to find him, we must be sure to look after him; he hath told us where he would be, behind what pillar, and under what cloud, and covered with what veil, and conveyed by what ministry, and present in what sacrament; and we must not look for him in the highways of ambition and pride, of wealth and sensual pleasures; these things are not found in the house of his Father, neither may they come near his dwelling. But if we seek for Christ, we shall find him in the methods of virtue, and the paths of God's commandments; in the houses of prayer, and the offices of religion; in the persons of the poor, and the retirements of an afflicted soul: we shall find him in holy reading and pious meditation, in our penitential sorrows, and in the time of trouble, in pulpits, and upon altars, in the word, and in the sacraments: if we come hither as we ought, we are sure to find our Beloved, him whom our soul longeth after.

Sure enough Christ is here; but he is not here in every manner, and, therefore, is not to be found by every inquirer, nor touched by every hand, nor received by all comers, nor entertained by every guest. He that means to take the air, must not use his fingers, but his mouth; and he that receives Christ, must have a proper, that is, a spiritual instrument, a purified heart, consecrated lips, and a hallowed mouth, a tongue that speaks no evil, and a hand that ministers to no injustice, and to no uncleanness: for a disproportionate instrument is an indecency, and makes the effect impossible both in nature and morality. Can a man bind a thought with chains, or carry imaginations in the palm of his hand? Can the beauty of the peacock's train, or the ostrich-plume, be delicious to the palate and the throat? Does the hand intermeddle with the joys of the heart? Or darkness that hides the naked, make him warm? Does the body live as