All those conquests which thou didst promise to thy self are become the trophees of so weak a hand Return to the combat since she hath triumphed over thee do thou at least triumph over thy self Alas I am afraid even to behold the place of my fall and the weak snares of a simple woman appear to me as boisterous chains Yet what can he fear who is resolute to die If thou find death amongst those Massacres thou shouldst rather embrace then decline it For what can it do but make thee companion of life it self Our soul is yet too foul to be a sacrifice for God let us first wash it with tears I fell down before the fire and I will rise by water I have walked upon the sea to come to Iesus and I will now return to him by the way of my tears I will speak now only by my tears since I have lately talked so wickedly with my mouth Since that which should open to speak Oracles for the Church hath been employed to commit foul treason since we have nothing left free to us but sighs and groans let us make use of the last liberty which is left us and when all is spent return to the mercy of Jesus which all the sins of the world can never evacuate I will from henceforth be a perpetuall example to the Church by my fall and rising again from death for the comfort of sinners and the fault of one night shall be lamented by me all the dayes of my life Moralities upon the Pretorian or Iudgement Hall 1. IN the passion of our Saviour all things are divine and it seemeth they go as high as they could be raised by that Soveraign power joyned with extream love Iesus the most supream and redoubted judge who will come in his great Majesty to judge the world fire and lightning streaming from his face and all things trembling under his feet was pleased at this time to be judged as a criminall person Every thing is most admirable in this judgement The accusers speak nothing of those things which they had resolved in their counsels but all spake against their consciences As soon as they are heard they are condemned justice for saketh them they are wholly possest with rage Pilate before he gave judgement upon Iesus pronounced it against himselfe for after he had so many times declared him innocent he could not give judgement without protesting himself to be unjust The silence of Iesus is more admired by this Infidell then the eloquence of all the world and truth without speaking one word triumpheth over falshood A Pagan Lady the wife of Pilate is more knowing then all the Laws more religious then the Priests more zealous then the Apostles more couragious then the men of Arms when she sleepeth Iesus is in her sleep when she talketh Iesus is upon her tongue if she write Iesus iâ— under her pen her letter defended him at the judgement Hall when all the world condemned him she calleth him holy when they used him like a theif She maketh her husband wash his hands before he touched that bloud the high price of which she proclamed She vvas a Roman Lady by Nation called Claudia Prâ—cula and it vvas very fit she should defend this Jesus who was to plant the seat of his Church in Rome All this while Jesus doth good amongst so many evils He had caused a place to be bought newly for the burial of Pilgrims at the price of his bloud he reconciles Herod and Pilate by the loss of his life He sets Barrabas at liberty by the loss of his honour he speaks not one word to him that had killed Saint Iohn the Baptist who was the voice And the other to revenge himself vvithout thinking what he did shewed him as a king He appears before Pilate as the king of dolours that he might become for us the king of glories But what a horrour is it to consider that in this judgement he was used like a slave like a sorcerer like an accursed sacrifice Slavery made him subject to be whipped the crown of thorns was given onely to Enchanters that made him appear as a Sorcerer And so many curses pronounced against him made him as the dismissive Goat mentioned in Leviticus which vvas a miserable beast upon which they cast all their execrations before they sent it to die in the desart He that bindeth the shovvers in clouds to make them vvater the earth is bound and dravvn like a criminall person He that holds the vast seas in his sist and ballanceth heaven with his fingers is strucken by servile hands He that enamels the bosome of the earth with a rare pleasing diversitie of flowers is most ignominiously crowned with a crown of thorns O hideous prodigies which took away from us the light of the Sun and covered the Moon with a sorrowfull darknesse Behold what a Garland of flowers he hath taken upon his head to expiate the sins of both Sexes It was made of briers and thorns which the earth of our flesh had sowed for us which the virtue of his Crosse took away All the pricks of death were thrust upon this prodigious patience which planted her throne upon the head of our Lord. Consider how the Son of God would be used for our sins while we live in delicacies and one little offensive word goeth to our hearts to which though he that spake it gave the swiftnesse of wings yet we keep it so shut up in our hearts that it getteth leaden heels which make it continue there fixed Aspirations ALas what do I see here a crown of thorns grafted upon a man of thorns A man of dolours who burns between two fires the one of love the other of tribulation both which do enflame and devour him equally and yet never can consume him O thou the most pure of all beauties where have my sins placed thee Thou art no more a man but a bloody skin taken from the teeth of Tygers and Leopards Alas what a spectacle is this to dispoil this silk * Ego sum vermis non hoâ—o Psalm 21. worm which at this day attires our Churches and Altars How could they make those men who looked upon thy chaste body strike and disfigure it O white Alabaster how hast thou been so changed into scarlet Every stroke hath made a wound and every wound a fountain of blood And yet so many fountains of thy so precious blood cannot draw from me one tear But O sacred Nightingale of the Cross who hath put thee within these thorns to make so great harmonies only by thy silence O holy thorns I do doe not ask you where are your roses I know well they are the blood of Jesus and I am not ignorant that all roses would be thorns if they had any feeling of that which you have Jesus carried them upon his head but I will bear them at my heart and thou O Jesus shalt be the
over against the terrestriall Paradise from whence he was banished that in his very punishment he might see the happinesse he had lost by his foul fault Now you must adde to the rest of his sufferings the great Chaos which like a diamond wall is between hell and Paradise together with the privation of all comfort those losses without remedy that wheel of eternity where death lasteth for ever and the end begins again without ceasing and the torments can never fail or diminish 4. Do good with those goods which God hath given you and suffer them not to make you wicked but employ your riches by the hands of virtue If gold be a child of the Sun why doe you hide him from his father God chose the bosome of rich Abraham to be the Paradise of poor Lazarus So may you make the needy feel happinesse by your bounty your riches shall raise you up when they are troden under your feet The Prophet saith you must sow in the field of Alms if you desire to reap in the mouth of Mercy Aspirations O God of justice I tremble at the terrour of thy judgements Great fortunes of the world full of honour and riches are fair trees oft times the more ready for the ax Their weight makes them apt to fall and prove the more unhappy fuell for eternall flames O Jesus father of the poor and King of the rich I most humbly beseech thee never give my heart in prey to covetousnesse which by loading me with land may make me forget heaven I know that death must consume me to the very bones I shall then possesse nothing but what I have given for thee Must I then live in this world like a Griffin to hoard up much gold and silver whereof I shall never have use still be vexed with care how to preserve it O most merciful Lord suffer me not to be taught by hell fire that which I may have neglected to learn out of thy Gospel I most heartily renounce all luxury and pomp of the world and this carnall life which would alwayes busie it self about my body If thou be pleased to make me rich I will be so for the poor and if thou make me poor I wil make my self rich in thee who art the true riches of thine elect The Gospel upon Friday the second week in Lent S. Matth. 21. Of the Master of a Vineyard whose Son was killed by his Farmers ANother Parable hear ye A man there was an housholder who planted a Vineyard and made a hedge round about it and digged in it a presse and builded a Tower and let it out to Husbandmen and went forth into a strange Countrey And when the time of fruis drew nigh he sent his servants to the Husbandmen to receive the fruits thereof And the Husbandmen apprehending his servants one they beat another they killed and another they stoned Again he sent other servants more then the former and they did to them likewise And last of all he sent to them his Son saying They will reverence my Son But the Husbandmen seeing the Son said within themselves This is the heir come let us kill him and we shall have his inheritance And apprehending him they cast him forth out of the Vineyard and killed him When therefore the Lord of the Vineyard shall come what will he doe to those Husbandmen They say to him The naughty men he will bring to nought and his Vineyard he will let out to other Husbandmen that shall render him the fruits of their seasons Iesus saith to them have you never read in the Scriptures The stone which the builders rejected the same is made into the head of the corner By our Lord was this done and it is marvellous in our eyes Therefore I say to you that the Kingdome of God shall be taken away from you and shall be given to a Nation yielding the fruits thereof And he that falleth upon this stone shall be broken and on whom it falleth it shall all to bruise him And when the chief Priests and Pharisees had heard his Parables they knew that he spake of them And seeking to lay hands upon him they feared the multitudes because they held him as a Prophet Moralities 1. We have reason to fear all that is in us yea even the gifts of God All his favours are so many chains If they bind us not to doe our duty they will bind us to the punishment due for that neglect Our soul is given us by God as a thing borrowed from heaven we must not be too prodigall of it We must dig up ill roots as we doe in land cultivated The time will come that we must render up the fruits shall we then present thorns Examine every day how you profit and what you doe draw every day a line but draw it toward eternity What can you hide from God who knows all What can you repay to God who gives all and how can you requite Jesus who hath given himself 2. How many messengers doth God send to our hearts without intermission and how many inspirations which we reject So many Sermons which we do not observe so many examples which we neglect Jesus comes in person by the Scrament of the Altar and we drive him from us to crucifie him when we place the Devil and Mortall sin in his room What other thing can we expect for reward of all these violences but a most fearful destruction if ye do not prevent the sword of justice by walking in the paths of mercy Our vanities which at first are like small threds by the contempt of Gods grace come to be great cables of sin He that defers his repentance is in danger to lose it and will be kept out of the Ark with the croking Raven since he hath neglected the mourning of the sorrowfull Dove 3. It is a most horrible thing to see a soul left to it self after it hath so many times for saken the inspirations of God It becomes a desolate Vineyard without inclosure The wild Boar enters into it and all unclean and ravenous creatures do there sport and leap without controul God hangs clouds over it but will let no drop of water fall upon it The Sun never looks upon it with a loving eye all there is barren venemous and near to hell Therefore above all things we must fear to be forsaken of God Mercy provoked changes it self into severe Justice All creatures will serve as Gods instruments to punish a fugitive soul which flies from him by her ingratitude when he drawes her to him by the sweetnesse of his benefits Aspirations ALas O great father of the worlds family I am confounded to see thy vineyard so ill ordered made so barren and spoiled My passions domineer like wild beasts and devour the fruits due to thy bounty I am heartily sorry I have so little esteemed thy graces and to have preferred all that which makes me contemptible before thee
to abate and humble the proudest of all Creatures then to represent his beginning and his end The middle-part of our life like a kind of Proteus takes up on it severall shapes not understood by others but the first and last part of it deceive no man for they do both begin and end in Dust It is a strange thing that Man knowing well what he hath been and what he must be is not confounded in himself by observing the pride of his own life and the great disorder of his passions The end of all other creatures is less deformed then that of man Plants in their death retain some pleasing smell of their bodies The little rose buries it self in her naturall sweetnesse and carnation colour Many Creatures at their death leave us their teeth horns feathers skins of which we make great use Others after death are served up in silver and golden dishes to feed the geatest persons of the world Onely mans dead carcase is good for nothing but to feed worms and yet he often retains the presumptuous pride of a Giant by the exorbitance of his heart and the cruell nature of a murderer by the furious rage of his revenge Surely that man must either be stupid by nature or most wicked by his own election who will not correct and amend himself having still before his eyes ashes for his glasse and death for his mistres 2 This consideration of Dust is an excellent remedy to cure vices and an assured Rampire against all temptations S. Paulinus saith excellently well That holy Iob was free from all temptations when he was placed upon the smoke and dust of his humility He that lies upon the ground can fall no lower but may contemplate all above him and meditate how to raise himself by the hand of God which pulls down the proud and exalts the humble Is a man tempted with pride The consideration of Ashes will humble him Is he burned with wanton love which is a direct fire But fire cannot consume Ashes Is he persecuted with covetousness Ashes do make the greatest Leeches and Bloud-Suckers cast their Gorges Every thing gives way to this unvalued thing because God is pleased to draw the instruments of his power out of the objects of our infirmities 3. If we knew how to use rightly the meditation of death we should there find the streames of life All the world together is of no estimation to him that rightly knows the true value of a just mans death It would be necessary that they who are taken with the curiosity of Tulips should set in their Gardens a Plant called Napell which carries a flower that most perfectly resembles a Deaths head And if the other Tulips do please their senses that will instruct their reason Before our last death we should die many other deaths by forsaking all those creatures and affections which lead us to sin We should resemble those creatures sacred to the Egyptians called Cynocephales which died piece-meal and were buried long before their death So should we bury all our concupiscences before we go to the grave and strive to live so that when death comes he should find very little businesse with us Aspiration O Father of all Essences who givest beginning to all things and art without end This day I take Ashes upon my head thereby professing before thee my being nothing and to do thee homage for that which I am and for that I ought to be by thy great bounties Alas O Lord my poor soul is confounded to see so many sparkles of pride and covetousnesse arise from this caitiffe dust which I am so little do I yet learn how to live and so late do I know how to die O God of my life and death I most humbly beseech thee so to govern the first in me and so to sweeten the last for me that if I live I may live onely for thee and if I must die that I may enter into everlasting blisse by dying in thy blessed love and favour The Gospel upon Ashwednesday S. Matthew 6. Of Hypocryticall Fasting WHen you fast be not as the hypocrites sad for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast Amen I say to you that they have received their reward Put thou when thou doest fast anoint thy head and wash thy face that thou appear not to men to fast but to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret will repay thee Heap not up to your selves treasures on the earth where the rust and moth do corrupt and where thieves dig thorow and steal But heap up to your selves treasures in heaven where neither the rust nor moth doth corrupt and where thieves do not dig thorow nor steal For where thy treasure is there is thy heart also Moralities 1. THat man goes to Hell by the way of Paradise who fasts and afflicts his body to draw the Praise of Men. Sorrow and vanity together are not able to make one Christian Act. He deserves everlasting hunger who starves himself that he may swell and burst with vain glory He stands for a spectacle to others being the murderer of himself and by sowing vanity reaps nothing but wind Our intentions must be wholly directed to God and our examples for our neighbour The Father of all vertues is not to be served with counterfeit devotions such lies are abomination in his sight and â—ertullian saith they are as many adulteries 2. It imports us much to begin Lent well entring into those lists in which so many holy souls have run their course with so great strictnesse having been glorious before God and honourable before men The difficulty of it is apprehended onely by those who have their understandings obstructed by a violent affection to kitchin stuffe It is no more burdensome to a couragious spirit then feathers are to a bird The chearfulnesse which a man brings to a good action in the beginning does halfe the work Let us wash our faces by confession Let us perfume our Head who is Jesus Christ by almes deeds Fasting is a most delicious feast to the conscience when it is accompanied with purenesse and charity but it breeds great thirst when it is not nourished with devotion and watered with mercy 3. What great pain is taken to get treasure what care to preserve it what fear to lose it and what sorrow when it is lost Alas is there need of so great covetousnesse in life to encounter with such extream nakednesse in death We have not the souls of Giants nor the body of a Whale If God will me poor must I endeavour to reverse the decrees of heaven and earth that I may become rich To whom do we trust the safety of our treasures To rust to moths and thieves were it not better we should in our infirmities depend only on God Almighty comfort our poverty in him who is onely rich and so carry our souls to heaven where Jesus on
demand a sign of Jesus THen answered him certain of the Scribes and Pharisees saying Master we would see a sign from thee who answered and said to them The wicked and advouterous generation seeketh a sign and a sign shall not be given it but the sign of Ionas the Prophet For as Ionas was in the Whales belly three dayes and three nights so shall the Sonne of man be in the heart of the earth three dayes and three nights The men of Nineveh shall rise in the judgement with this generation and shall condemne it because they did penance at the preaching of Ionas And behold more then Ionas here The Queen of the south shall rise in the judgement with this generation and shall condemne it because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdome of Solomon and behold more then Solomon here And when an unclean spirit shall go out of a man he walketh through dry places seeking rest and findeth not Then hee saith I will returne into my house whence I came out And coming he findeth it vacant swept with besomes and trimmed then goeth he and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked then himself and they enter in and dwell there and the last of that man be made worse then the first So shall it be also to this wicked generation As he was yet speaking to the multitudes behold his mother and his brethren stood without seeking to speak to him and one said unto him behold thy mother and thy brethren stand without seeking thee But he answering him that told him said who is my mother and who are my brethren And stretching forth his hand upon his Disciples he said Behold my mother and my brethren for whosoever shall do the will of my Father that is in heaven he is my brother and sister and mother Moralities 1. 'T is a very ill sign when we desire signs to make us believe in God The signs which we demand to fortifie out faith are ofttimes marks of our infidelity There is not a more dangerous plague in the events of worldly affairs then to deal with the Devil or to cast nativities All these things fil men whith more saults then knowledge For divine Oracles have more need to be reverenced then interpreted He that will find God must seek him with simplicity and professe him with piety 2. Some require a sign and yet between heaven and earth all is full of signs How many creatures soever there are they are all steps and characters of the Divinity What a happy thing it is to study what God is by the volume of time and by that great Book of the world There is not so small a floure of the meddows nor so little a creature upon earth which doth not tell us some news of him He speaks in our ears by all creatures which are so many Organ-pipes to convey his Spirit and voice to us But he hath no sign so great as the word incarnate which carries all the types of his glory and power About him onely should be all our curiosity our knowledge our admiration and our love because in him we can be sure to find all our repose and consolation 3. Are we not very miserable since we know not our own good but by the losse of it which makes us esteem so little of those things we have in our hands The Ninivites did hear old Ionas the Prophet The Queen of Saba came from farre to hear the wisdome of Solomon Jesus speaks to us usually from the Pulpits from the Altars in our conversations in our affairs and recreations And yet we do not sufficiently esteem his words nor inspirations A surfeited spirit mislikes honey and is distasted with manna raving after the rotten pots of Egypt But it is the last and worst of all ills to dispise our own good Too much confidence is mother of an approaching danger A man must keep himself from relapses which are worse then sinnes which are the greatest evils of the world he that loves danger shall perish in it The first sinne brings with it one Devil but the second brings seven There are some who vomit up their sinnes as the sea doth cockles to swallow them again Their life is nothing but an ebbing and flowing of sinnes and their most innocent retreats are a disposition to iniquity For as boild water doth soonest freez because the cold works upon it with the greater force so those little fervours of devotion which an unfaithfull soul feels in confessions and receiving if it be not resolute quite to forsake wickednesse serve for nothing else but to provoke the wicked spirit to make a new impression upon her It is then we have most reason to fear Gods justice when we despise his mercy We become nearest of kin to him when his Ordinances are followed by our manners and our life by his precepts Aspirations O Word Incarnate the great sign of thy heavenly Father who carriest all the marks of his glory and all the characters of his powers It is thou alone whom I seek whom I esteem and honour All that I see all I understand all that I feel is nothing to me if it do not carry thy name and take colour from thy beauties nor be animated by thy Spirit Thy conversation hath no trouble and thy presence no distaste O let me never lose by my negligence what I possesse by thy bounty Keep me from relapses keep me from the second gulf and second hell of sinne He is too blind that profits noting by experience of his own wickednesse and by a full knowledge of thy bounties The Gospel upon Thursday the first week in Lent out of S. Matthew the 15. Of the woman of Canaan ANd Iesus went forth from thence and retired into the quarters of Tyre and Sidon And behold a woman of Canaan came forth out of these coasts and crying out said to him have mercy upon me O Lord the Son of David my daughter is sore vexed of a Devil who answered her not a word And his Disciples came and besought him saying dismisse her because she cryeth out after us And he answering said I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel But she came and adored him saying Lord help me who answering said It is not good to take the bread of children and to cast it to the dogs but she said yea Lord for the dogs also eat of the crums that fall from the tables of their masters Then Iesus answering said to her O woman great is thy faith be it done to thee as thou wilt and her daughter was made whole from that hour Moralities 1. OUr Saviour Jesus Christ after his great and wondrous discent from heaven to earth from being infinite to be finite from being God to be man used many severall means for salvation of the world And behold entring upon the frontiers of Tyre and Sidon he was pleased to conceal himself But
and consolations I am cheerfully revived and my heart leaps in thy presence as a child rejoiceth at sight of his dear nurse O Light of lights which dost illuminate man coming into this world I will contemplate thee at the Sun-rising above all creatures I will follow thee with mine eyes all the day long and I will not leave thee at Sun setting for there is nothing can be in value near like thee It belongs onely to thee O Sun of my soul to arise at all hours and to give light at midnight as well as at noon-day The Gospel upon Passion-Sunday S. Iohn the 8. Upon these words Who can accuse me of sin WHich of you shall argue me of sin If I say the verity why doe you not believe me He that is of God heareth the words of God therefore you hear not because you are not of God The Iewes therefore answered and said to him Do not we say well that thou ariâ—a Samaritan and hast a Devil Iesus answered I have no Devil but I do honour my Father and you have disshonoured me But I seek not mine own glory There is that seeketh and judgeth Amen Amen I say to you if any man keep my word he shall not see death for ever The Iewes therefore said now we have known that thou hast a Devil Abraham is dead and the Propheâ—s and thou sayest if any man keep my word he shall not tast death for ever Why art thou greater then our Father Abraham who is dead and the Prophets are dead Whom doest thou make thy self Iesus answered if I doe glorâ—fie my self my glory is nothing It is my Father that glorifieth me whom you say that he is your God and you have not known him but I know him And if I shall say that I know him not I shall be like to you a lier but I doe know him and do keep his word Abraham your Father rejoyced that he might see my day and he saw and was glad The Iews therefore said to him Thou hast not yet fifty years and hast thou seen Abraham Iesus said to them Amen Amen I say to you before that Abraham was made I am They took stones therefore to cast at him But Iesus hid himself and went out of the Temple Moralities 1. THe Saviour of the world being resolved to suffer death as the Priest of his own sacrifice and sacrifice of his Priesthood shews that it is an effect of his mercy and not a suffering for any fault He doth advance the standard of the Crosse which was the punishment of guilty persons but he brought with him innocencie which is the mark of Saints he honours it with his dolours and sacrifices it with his bloud to glorifie it in the estimation of all the just He is without spot and capable to take out all stains by his infinite sanctity and yet he suffered as a sinner to blot out all our sins It is in this suffering he would have us all imitate him He doth not require us to make a heaven nor stars nor to enlarge the sea or to make the earth firm but to make our selvs holy as he is holy according to our capacity And this we may gain by his favour which he hath by his own nature No man is worthy to suffer with Jesus who doth not purifie himself by the sufferings of Jesus If we suffer in sinne we carry the crosse of the bad thief We must carry the Crosse of Jesus and consecrate our tribulations by our own virtues 2. It is said that the venemous serpent called a Basilisk which kills both men and beasts by his pestilent breath kills himself when he sees a looking glasse by the very reflection of his own poison The Jews do here the very same They come about this great mirrour of sanctity which carried all the glory of the living God he casts his beames upon them but envy the mother of murder which kills it self onely by the rayes of golden arrows makes them dart out venemous words to dishonour him yet his incomparable virtue kills them without losing any of his own brightnesse to teach us that the beauty of innocency is the best buckler against all slanders Though it seem to be tarnished for a time yet her brightness will thereby become more lively for it is a starre which the blackest vail of night cannot darken 3. Abraham did rejoyce at this day of God two thousand years before it was manifested to the world All the Patriarks did long after it and did anticipate their felicities by the purity of their thoughts This blessed day hath been reserved for us yet many of us despise it We so much love the day of man that by the force of too much love to it we forget the love of God We should and must contemn those perishing dayes of worldly honours and pleasures which are covered with eternal night that we may partake the eternity of that beautifull day which shall never have evening Aspirations O God of purity in whose presence the Angels ravished with admiration do cover their faces with their wings and have no sweeter extasies then the admiration of thy beauty The stars are not pure enough before thy redoubted Majesty The Sun beholds thee as the trâ—e Authour of his light Thou onely canst purifie all humane kind by a sanctity which spreads it self over all ages Alas I am confounded to see my sinfull soul so often dyed black with so many stains and beastly ordures before those most pure beams of thy glory Wash O wash again out all which displeaseth thee Regenerate in my heart a Spirit that shall be wordly thy self How shall I follow thee to mâ—unt Calvary if I be pursued with so many ill habits which I have often detested before thine eyes How can I goe in company with the first and greatest of all Saints drawing after me so many sins The encrease of my offences would multiply thy crosses I will therefore do my best to drown all my imperfections within thy bloud I will procure light to my nights by that bright and beautifull day which Abraham saw from that glorious day which took beginning from thy Crosse I will no more care for the day of man that I may the better apply my self to the day of God The Gospell upon Munday the fifth week in Lent St. Iohn 7. Jesus said to the Pharisees You shall seek and not find me and he that is thirsty let him come to me ANd the Princes and Pharisees sent Ministers to apprehend him Iesus therefore said to them Yet a little time am I with you and I goe to him that sent me you seek me and shall not find and where I am you cannot come The Iews therefore said among themselves whether will this man goe that we shall not find him will he goe into the dispersion of the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles what is this saying that he hath said You shall seek me and shall
O Spectacles of horrour but Abysse of goodnesse and mercy I feel my heart divided by horrour pity hate love execration and adoration But my admiration and being ravished carries me beyond my self Is this then that bloudy sacrifice which hath been expected from all ages This hidden mystery this profound knowledge of the Cross this dolorous Iesus which makes the honourable amends between heaven and earth to the eternal Father for expiation of the sinnes of humane kind Alas poor Lord thou hadst but one life and I see a thousand instruments of death which have taken it away Was there need of opening so many bloudy doors to let out thine innocent soul Could it not part from thy body without making on all sides so many wounds which after they have served for the objects of mens cruelty serve now for those of thy mercy O my Iesus I know not to whom I speak for I do no more know thee in the state thou now art or if I do it is onely by thy miseries because they are so excessive that there was need of a God to suffer what thou hast indured I look upon thy disfigured countenance to find some part of thy resemblance and yet can find none but that of thy love Alas O beautifull head which dost carry all the glory of the highest heaven divide with me this dolorous Crown of Thorns they were my sinnes which sowed them and it is thy pleasure that thine innocencie should mow them Give me O Sacred mouth give me that Gall which I see upon thy lips suffer me to sprinkle all my pleasures with it since after a long continuance it did shut up and conclude all thy dolours Give me O Sacred hands and adored feet the Nails which have pierced you love binds you fast enough to the Cross without them But do thou O Lord hold me fast to thy self by the chains of thine immense charity O Lance cruel Lance why didst thou open that most precious side thou didst think perhaps to find there the Sons life and yet thou foundest nothing but the Mothers heart But without so much as thinking what thou didst in playing the murderer thou hast made a sepulchre wherein I will from henceforth bury my soul When I behold these wounds of my dear Saviour I do acknowledge the strokes of my own hand I will therefore likewise engrave there my repentance I will write my conversion with an eternal Character And if I must live I will never breathe any other life but that onely which shall be produced from the death of my Iesus crucified The Gospel for Easter Day S. Mark the 16. ANd when the Sabbath was past Mary Magdalen and Mary of Iames and Salome bought spices that coming they might anoint Iesus And very early the first of the Sabbaths they come to the Monument the Sun being now risen And they say one to another who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the Monument And looking they saw the stone rolled back For it was very great And entring into the Monument they saw a young man sitting on the right hand covered with a white Robe and they were astonied Who saith to them Be not dismayed you seek Iesus of Nazareth that was crucified he is risen he is not here behold the place where they laid him But go tell his Disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee there shall you see him as he told you Moralities 1. THe Sepulchre of Iesus becomes a fountain of life which carries in power all the glories of the highest heaven Our Saviour riseth from thence as day out of the East and appears as triumphant in the ornaments of his beauties as he had been humbled by the excesse of his mercies The rage of the Iews loseth here its power death his sting Sathan his kingdome the Tomb his corruption and hell his conquest Mortality is destroyed life is illuminated all is drowned in one day of glory which comes from the glorious light of our Redeemer It is now saith Tertullian that he is revested with his Robe of honour and is acknowledged as the eternall Priest for all eternity It is now saith Saint Gregory Nazianzen that he reassembles humane kind which was scattered so many years by the sin of one man and placeth it between the Arms of his Divinity This is the Master-piece of his profound humility and I dare boldly affirm saith S. Ambrose that God had lost the whole world if this Sacred virtue which he made so clearly shine in his beloved Son had not put him into possession of his Conquests We should all languish after this Triumphant state of the Resurrection which wil make an end of all our pains and make our Crowns everlasting 2. Let us love our Iesus as the Maries did that with them we may be honoured with his visits Their love is indesatigable couragious and insatiable They had all the day walkt round about the Iudgement Hall Mount Calvary the Crosse and the Sepulchre They were not wearied with all that And night had no sleep to shut up their eyes They forsake the Image of death which is sleep to find death it self and never looked after any bed except the Sepulchre of their Master They travell amongst darknesse pikes lances the affrights of Arms and of the night nothing makes them affraid If there appear a difficulty to remove the stones love gives them arms They spare nothing for their Master and Saviour They are above Nichodemus and Ioseph they have more equisite perfumes for they are ready to melt and distil their hearts upon the Tomb of their Master O faithfull lovers seek no more for the living amongst the dead That cannot die for love which is the root of life 3. The Angel in form of a young man covered with a white Robe shews us that all is young and white in immortality The Resurrection hath no old age it is an age which can neither grow nor diminish These holy Maries enter alive into the Sepulchre where they thought to find death but they learn news of the chiefest lives Their faith there confirmed their piety satisfied there is promises assured and their love receives consolation Aspirations I Do not this day look toward the East O my Jesus I consider the Sepulchre it is from thence this fair Sun is risen O that thou appearest amiable dear spouse of my soul Thy head which was covered with thorns is now â—rowned wiâ—h a Diadem of Stars and Lâ—ghts and all the glory of the highest Heaven rests upon it Thine eyes which were eclipsed in bloâ—d have enlightned them with fires and delicious brightnesse which melâ— my heart Tâ—y feet and hands so far as I can see are enameld with Rubies which after they have been the objects of mens cruelty are now become eternal marks of thy bounty O Iesus no more my wounded but my glorified Iesus where am I what do I I see I flie I swound I die I revive
us by an affectionate life we live in him by a life of reason and election Iesus lived and reposed in the heart of his blessed Mother as upon a throne of love and as within a Paradise of his most holy delights This heart was before as a bed covered with flowers But this same heart on the day of his passion became like a scastold hanged with mourning whereupon our Saviour entred to be tormented and crucified upon the Crosse of love which was the Crosse of his Mother This admirable Merchant who descended from heaveÌ„ to acomplish the businesse of all ages who took upon him our miseries to give us felicities was plunged within a sea of bloud and this so precious shipwrak there remained one oâ—ely inestimable pearl which was his divine mother and yet he abandons her and gives her into the hands of his Disciple After he had forsaken those nearest to him see what he does with his body Iesus did so abandon it a little before his death that not being content onely to deliver it as a prey to sorrow but he suffered to be exposed naked to the view of the world And amongst his sharpest dolours after he had been refused the drink which they gave to malefactours to strengthen them in their torments he took for himself vinegar and gall O what a spectacle was it to see a body torn in pieces which rested it self upon its own wounds which was dying every moment but could not die because that life distilled by drops What Martyr did ever endure in a body so sensible and delicate having an imagination so lively in such piercing dolours mixt with so few comforts And what Martyr did suffer for all the sins of the vvhole vvorld as he did proportioning his torments according to the fruits which vvere to proceed from his cross Perhaps O faithfull soul thou lookest for a mans body in thy Iesus but thou findest nothing but the appearance of one crusted over with gore bloud Thou seekest for limbs findest nothing but vvounds Thou lookest for a Iesus which appeared glorious upon mount Thabor as upon a Throne of Majesty with all the ensigns of his glory and thou findest only a skin all bloudy fastned to a crosse betvven tvvo thieves And if the consideration of this cannot bring drops of bloud from thy heart it must be more insensible then a diâ—mond 3. To conclude observe the third quality of a good death which will declare it self by the exercise of great and heroick virtues Consider that incomparable mildnesse which hath astonished all ages hath encouraged all virtues hath condemned all revenges hath instructed all Schools and crowned all good actions He was raised upon the crosse vvhen his dolours were most sharp and piercing when his wounds did open on all sides when his precious bloud shed upon the earth and moistened it in great abundance when he saw his poor clothes torn in peices and yet bloudy in the hands of those who crucified him He considered the extreme malice of that cruell people how those which could not wound him with iron pierced him with the points of their accursed tongues He could quickly have made sire com down from heaven upon those rebellious heads And yet forgetting all his pains to remember his mercies he opened his mouth and the first worde he spake was in the favour of his enemies to negotiate their reconciliation before his soul departed The learned Cardinall Hugues admiring the excessive charity of our Saviour toward his enemies applies excellent well that which is spoken of the Sunne in Ecclesiasticus He brings news to all the world at his rising and at noon-day he burns the earth and heats those furnaces of Nature which make it produce all her fruits So Jesus the Sun of the intelligible world did manifest himself at his Nativity as in the morning But the Crosse was his bed at noon from whence came those burning streames of Love which inflames the hearts of all blessed persons who are like furnaces of that eternall fire which burns in holy Sion On the other part admire that great magnanimity which held him so long upon the Crosse as upon a Throne of honour and power when he bestowed Paradise upon a man that was his companion in suffering I cannot tell whether in this action we should more admire the good fortune of the good theif or the greatnesse of Jesus The happinesse of the good theif who is drawn for a cut throat to prison from prison to the judgement hall from thence to the Crosse and thence goes to Paradise without needing any other gate but the heart of Jesus On the other side what can be more admirable then to see a man crucified to do that act which must be performed by the living God when the world shall end To save some to make others reprobate and to judge from the height of his Crosse as if he sate upon the cheifest throne of all Monarchs But we must needs affirm that the virtue of patience in this holds a chief place and teaches very admirable lessons He endures the torments of the body and the pains of the spirit in all the faculties of his soul in all the parts of his virgin flesh and by the cruelty and multiplicity of his wounds they all become one onely wound from the sole of his foot to the top of his head His delicate body suffers most innocently and all by most ingrate and hypocriticall persons who would colour their vengeance with an apparence of holinesse He suffers without any comfort at all and which is more without bemoaning himself he suffers whatsoever they would or could lay upon him to the very last gasp of his life Heaven weares mourning upon the Cross all the Citizens of heaven weep over his torments the earth quakes the stones rend themselves sepulchres open the dead arise Onely Jesus dies unmoveable upon this throne of patience To conclude who would not be astonished at the tranquillity of his spirit amongst those great convulsions of the world which moved round about the Cross amongst such bloudy dolours insolent cries insupportable blasphemies how he remained upon the Crosse as in a Sanctuary at the foot of an Altar bleeding weeping praying to mingle his prayers with his bloud and tears I do now understand why the Wise man said He planted Isles within the Abysse since that in so great a gulph of afflictions he shewed such a serenity of spirit thereby making a Paradise for his Father amongst so great pains by the sweet perfume of his virtues After he had prayed for his enemies given a promise of Paradise to the good thief and recommended his mother to his Disciple he shut up his eyes from all humane things entertaining himself onely with prayers and sighs to his heavenly Father O that at the time of our deaths we could imitate the death of Iesus and then we should be sure to find the streams of life Aspirations