Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n
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A00926
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The affections of a pious soule, unto our Saviour-Christ Expressed in a mixt treatise of verse and prose. By Richard Flecknoe.
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Flecknoe, Richard, d. 1678?
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1640
(1640)
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STC 11032; ESTC S115106
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11,653
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64
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infirmities as fast as he took them of them they laid them upon him Infirmitates nostras ipse portavit c. And lastly for giving them life they crucified him to death oh unheard of ingratitude unparallel'd wickednesse never to be wrapt up in silence nor never unfolded in speech but with detestation men worthy to be banished humane societie so little of man they had in them but whither for beasts were lesse beasts than they Bos enim cognovit possessorem suum c. Devils lesse Devils for they acknowledged him yet the son of God Quid mihi et tibi est Iesu fili Dei altissimi c. As things then worse than man beast or Devill let them still be Jewes sacrilegious in all both to the God that made them and the god they made which if it were selfe-interest as of most wicked mortals it is most sacrilegious were they even to that Now how for honoring them they repayed him with dishonouring him againe and how whilst in a manner his whole endevour was to exalt them above all other people theirs only was under all others to depresse and abase him for it Quasi opprobrium hominum et abjectio plebis holding him as the Prophet said for the most abject of people and opprobrious of men there needs no other testimony of it but that one act of theirs of preferring a Barrabas to him Non hunc sed Barrabam c. A seditious to one who instructed them in nothing but meeknesse and humilitie Discite à me quia mitis sum et humilis corde c. A thiefe to one who had given them all they had De cujus plenitudine omnes accepimus And a murtherer to him from whom they had receiv'd their very lives and being In ipso enim vivimns movemur et sumus c. O good God! But it is better to say nothing here then not to say enough and let Silence the tongue of Admiration take up where ours of necessitie must leave This was such an affront such an indignitie as we may imagine sunk heavie as lead so deep into the bottome of his divine hart no humane thought hath fathome-line enough to sound the depth of it Wherefore as a thing wholly inscrutable let us give it over Whilst this was discoursed unto her in that method and order as we have set it downe you might perceive her by often varying colour gesture of body and motion of the eye taking all the severall formes of griefe of pitie of indignation and the like as in so tender a soule could be imprest till ariving to this last period she was so brimfull of affection as able to containe no more Thus at the foot of the crosse shee powred it forth The Affection A Dithyrambus in contemplation of our Saviour crucified O God and is it thou I see here suffring under their hands now Vnder whose feet both heaven and earth do bow Annd is it thou I heare Them so blaspheme as my affrighted eare Even tingles with dire horror of 't and feare O mee What do I heare and see O eares amaz'd with hearing eyes with seeing O endles goodnesse of an endles being Deare heart that hadst the heart With such a life o part Deare life that couldst forgoe A soule that lov'd thee so And O deare soul wouldst take So sad farewell for my unworthy sake And hast thou done all this for me For all this then what shall I do for thee When thou demand'st it shall I grutch Thee this small hart as t were too much Shall I be so peorly neere To hold my life for thee too deere Or think my soule too much for thee Who nothing thoughtst enough for me Oh no I am thy thrall And here before thee prostrate fall Offring up heart life soule and all And being armed with this strong and vertuous resolve how shee longed like some young and noble Warriour to experience her yet untried force and valour in the encounter with some adversarie paine perplexitie or distresse might put her bravely to it that whilst in any part or sense of her shee found a difficultie in the fight she presently might say This this my Saviour for my sake would have made nothing of and slight it so Or if shee fainted or lost heart cry out with that great Champion of the Apostles Quis nos seperabit à charitate Christi c. What is it can seperate us from the charitie of Christ Tribulatio an angustia c. Encouraging her selfe and resuming a strength from thence to dare and challenge the worst of affliction And this from no selfe-presumption neither shee well knowing how of her selfe she could do nothing Non quasi ex nobis aliquid c. But from the confidence or rather assurance she had in him who assisted her Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat c. No no would shee say I can doe nothing I but God and I can do all And if any imagine it a presumption to name my selfe with God let them know I hold it a greater presumption for any to name themselves without him How gladly for his sake would shee have embraced a contumely and scorne would have abhorr'd an eye of flesh bloud I meane such eyes as the Devill opened in Paradise long since not such as our Saviour opened on the Crosse to day how greedily would shee have put up an injurie and affront even as a jewell in the cabinet of her heart to weare on that generall day when all our braverie here shall be quite out of fashion and they onely accounted gloriously brave who have such jewels as those to weare And never stood on such nice termes the whilst as Had I deserved it it would never have grieved me or from any but such and such from whom I least expected it it had beene far more tollerable c. And I pray from whom could our Saviour lesse have expected the payment of those injuries and affronts which past so currantly with him than from the Jewes whom he had obliged not only with all the ties of Humanitie but of Divinitie too Who ever stood more out of the way of contempt and scorn than he by birth above all exception noble ex stirpe Davidis c. borne of the Royall Stem of such dignitie of aspect as it was said of him Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum He was faire and lovely above the sons of men And to conclude of life and manners so irreprehensible as hee put his verie enemies to it with urging them Quis ex vobis arguet me de peccato c. to find out a blame or fault in him And let any now that find themselves agrieved they are not respected according to their merits and deserts examine where they ever have deserved so much of respect as he and had so little paid and if they finde it so I 'll say they have reason and just cause to complaine indeed No
28. His ears played upon from every side with whole volleyes of fearfull blasphemies as alios salvos fecit seipsum non potest salvum facere He could save others and cannot save himselfe Matth. 27. 42. Or else with such bitter scornes and taunts as these Si Rex Israel est descendat de cruce c. Let him now descend from the Crosse if he be the King of Israel Ibid. which to a man sensible of his honour had been most grievous but to a God most intolerable unlesse perhaps he were enamoured of griefe as sure he was that day even to Espouse it on the Crosse and take denomination from thence of vir dolorum the very husband of it as Esaias had prophecyed of him long before For his smelling I will not offend the nice delicate with commemorating the abhominable stench of those filthy and loathsome Crachets the very Entrails of the Jewes malice hung clottering in his face that face in quem desiderant Angeli prospicere Which so much delighted the Angels to behold of which then they might well say indeed vidimus eum non erat ei species neque decor that they had seen it and there was neither feature nor beauty in it For his taste to have nothing administred it to sweeten the bitternesse of death but Gall and Vinegar When for other Malefactors most pleasant wines were allowed provided at the publike cost O it was cruell barbarous cruell that But he foresaw it necessary for us whilst we live here where the wheele of affliction with variety of new suffering every day fetches its turne about us to have for Imitation his great Example of patiently suffering all For his feeling we have spoken of that before if it were not altogether unspeakeable what he felt But alas all this of the exterior compared to his Interior suffrings is but as a single drop of water to the whole Ocean or the Center-point of Earth unto the vast circumference of Heaven for the soule as an instrument strung with finer strings than the body is of more delicate resentment more sensible of everie little touch And how rudely did they play upon it Hee could not speake to them though nothing but sugar and honey like the Bridegroome in the Canticles but in churlish and bitter speech they repartyed againe If in soft and silken phrase he question'd them either in pure disdaine and spight they not vouchsaf'd him answer So Si interrogavero non respondebitis mihi c. Luk. 22. Or else it was in words as hard as Semai's to David were everie one accompanied with a stone so crosse so contrarie were they in words unto him But in action it goes a thought beyond imagination how contrarie they were putting sinister interpretation still to disguise the right meaning on whatsoever he did If he cured their sick it was to breake their Sabbaoth if he cast their Devils out it was in the name of Beelzebub They held him for Libertine if hee eat or drunk with them if not for Samaritan so well hee might say of them Cecinimus vobis non saltâstis lamentavimus non planxistis c. Mat. 11. but they went further yet Pericles could say of the Samians not content with courtesies they received from those of Athens that they were Infantibus similes qui cibum non nisi illachrymando admittebant c. Plutarch Like children who whilst they were benefited cryed But what should one say of these Never men borne in the disgrace of better Nature had such antipathy with their best good as they For marke how this perverse wicked and viperous generation out-doing spight it selfe requited him for love with hatred for good with ill and for honouring them with dishonouring him againe And first of their hatreds to him let this be sufficient argument that they could not so much as endure his sight and when wee once withdraw our eyes from any one 't is signe we have withdrawne our affection before but whilst he projected such right and full beames of love on them as even reflected them to his very hart the sons of Iacob never with more oblique auerted eyes beheld their brother Ioseph than they did him Now if as they say the chiefest attraction of love bee love and he holds no commercewith humanitie who will nor give nor take affection What should one think or say of this malignitie But for more ample declaration of their inhumanitie to him wee are to note how that hate and aversion from a thing which the more civill creature doth expresse by simple flight and avoydance the more savage and effeâ—ate doth by violent assault So Naturalists observe in the wild Bull such hatred and nocivenesse to man as but object unto it the picture of one and presently with horne hoofe it furiously sets upon it And mark now if they did not the like by him when Pilat proposing him unto them with an Ecce homo Behold the man they stantly bellowed out Crucifige crucifige eum Let him be crucified so as hee might well say of them Tauri pingues obsiderunt me that hee was encompassed with Bulls on everie side But the proofe of love consisting in action Probatio enim amoris exhibitio est operis c. Greg. Let us from thence behold his love to them as their hatreds to him againe and so consider how they rewarded him for good with ill You know wee have compassion for none but those wee have passion for and where the soyle is hate there pitie never growes Now what compassion had he for them Miserior super turbam c. and that not only in words but in effect multiplying bread for the hungrie and for the thirstie for those who were necessitous hee as we may say turned stones into water for the delicious hee turned water into wine sweetly violencing all natures but theirs the while for their sick he restored them unto health their dead unto life againe To say nothing of his spirituall benefits since they were of nature so carnall they had scarce a capacitie of them and how did they requite him Audite coeli obstupescite So little compassion had they of him as when he came to die at what time others hate leaves the condemned to pitie these pursue him farther than ever any 's did within the limits of humanitie not only to death but even after it when Unus militum lancea latus ejus aperuit et continuo exivit sanguis et aqua One of the Souldiers pierced his side with a lance and presently there streamed forth bloud and water A barbarisme and inhumanitie no water could expiate enough but that which then issued from his sacred side no fire but of that charitie which made him then shed his last drop of bloud But to proceed for his food they repayed him with the bread of dolour panem doloris c. and for his drink with gall and vinegar Their