UPon that day (never to be forgotten, nor ever without teares to be remembred) which stands markt to all posteritie, with the black note upon it, of his death, who is [Page 2] the life of all, it chanced a pious soule from those remoter parts of Gallilee, consining with the sea, came up to Hierusalem in search of our Saviour Christ.

Where being arived, shee found all in noyse and uprore; most part with thronging haste, flocking towards the Temple, and whi­spering somewhat of strange and admirable as they past along; the rest in the streets effused, and wa­ving up and downe with the tide of severall passions, here one ex­ulting with insolent joy, another there as much depressed with griefe: this, silently weeping; that, lowdly jocund; so as you would have imagined both joy and griefe had inhabited there to­gether [Page 3] (as their extremes, they say, do neere confine.) And if (as Painters note) the same lines serve to delineate both weeping and laughter too, you had seene them both exprest unto the life, in one piece there; both yet set off with a deep shadow of admiration.

Whereupon, she meeting with none, of whom seasonably shee might demand the cause of such discrepant affection: And easily conjecturing him she sought (the exactest rule of order) there, no where to bee found where such disorder was, retired her selfe to that part of the Citie, where Mount Calvary, like a swelling tumour arises on its side, both af­ter so long journey to repose her [Page 4] wearied limbs, as also in silence and solitude of the place, to recol­lect a while from noyse and cla­mour of the Citie multitude. Here she was no sooner come, but behold a strange and horrid spe­ctacle met her amazed eye. It was of three crosses erected on the Mount, whereon Death it seemes had affixed in trophie of that daies victorie, three persons crucified; one of which (hee whose Crosse stood in the middest, more emi­nent than the rest) as one of more regard, was circumstanced with a lamentable and lamenting sort of women, weake of sex, yet of mightie griefe, few in number, but equall to many in affliction, the woes of a thousand being in every one.

[Page 35] At sight of whom she straight drew towards the place; (led by compassion, animating her on, with this noble thought: how she being a member of the universall body, the griefe of e­verie one was in part her own.) Where being arived, shee might perceive Mary the mother of Ie­sus, Mary her sister of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen to be three of them, with whom being long conjoyned in affection; by holy sympathy, shee soone be­came familiar with their griefe, ere with their cause of grieving; and wept to see them weep.

So long she cōtinued weeping, & as long ignorant, why (griefe [Page 6] having so stopt up the passages of their voyces, they could not arive to words, and her teares drawne such a watry curtaine before her eyes, shee could not discerne who they bemoaned so, only thus much shee might perceive, his face (whosoe're he was) was so defaced with bloud, as a cleerer and lesse clouded eye than hers, might well be ex­cused, its not reading the con­tents of it; untill at length, one of that sorrowfull company gi­ving first a heave or two, like one oppressed under some pon­derous waight, to raise her words above her woes, burst forth into this short exclamati­on, [Page 7] O Iesu, Iesu; and said no more.

At this shee strait great with suspition (as sorrow is ever pregnant of suspect to be delive­red of it, (like those who seeke what willingly they would not find, and but hunt their owne feares with curiositie) deman­ded of another, who it was they lamented so. When she survey­ing her with a wondring eye: ‘And are you alone (said shee) so much stranger not only to Hierusalem, but to the world, to be ignorant who they have crucified here. Can you feele the earth-quake under you, and not know it is for his suf­fering [Page 8] who made the earth? Can you behold the Heavens▪ the Sun and Moone, lost in Cimerian darknesse, and not perceive hee who enlightned them is here ecclips'd? Looke upon yonder rock, it cleft (senslesse as it is) that instant as hee died, and what a heart have you then, not to bee so much as sensible of his death? But I forget my selfe, and whilst I seeke to find you out a griefe (by invasion of speech) have almost lost mine owne; wherefore let me tell you in a word, and then make good my silence; It is Iesus of Naza­reth they have crucified here.’

[Page 9] At hearing of which, it was no griefe, no passion of the li­ving that ceazed her; but such a stupiditie, as death could not have rendred her more immova­ble for the time, so true it is, Curae leves loquuntur ingentes stupent: Senec. Untill at last, as if but then, the floud-gates of her tears were drawen up, they gushed forth in such abundance, as if each drop had stroven to fall first to the ground. In so much, as had you beheld Niobe wee­ping her childrens losse, you had seene an image, & but an image only of her weeping him; and yet in this excesse of teares and griefe, as if she had beene all de­fective [Page 10] to exstimulate her heart, the more to grieve, and excitate affection to weep the more: In a sad and mournfull accent shee delivered this,

Having done this, shee began to weep againe; then shreek, as [Page 12] if her soule would with her voyce have sallyed forth, ac­companying her lamentations now with wringing her hands, now tearing her haire; Archi­tect Sorrow never contriving building, where was more va­rietie of sad prospective; untill at last Eccho being sooner wea­ried with repeating her plaints than she with uttering them, to give it ease a while, though not her selfe, shee set her silent thoughts to task with the ac­count of what her deerly Belo­ved had done & suffered for her, summing up everie particular most exact and carefully, as it was delivered her in Inventory, [Page 13] by one was present there.

As first (and in generall) how voluntarily hee offered himselfe to sufferance for us: Oblatus est quia ipse voluit: Isa. 53. Even to the pointing out himselfe unto them, who came to apprehend him with an Ego sum: Whence (said shee) wee may collect, (If we would be reciprocall) there is a kind of will and forward­nesse requisite on our parts, in suffering for him againe.

Next and in particular, what sufferings they were, he offered himselfe unto; As how not one part alone, but all, even from head to foot, everie sense of him, and the whole exterior and in­terior [Page 14] man, was even surfetted (as it were) with the bread of dolour and affliction Saturabi­tur opprobriis, &c.

His head crowned with thornes, and those such rigid and sharp-pointed ones, as the very skin of it was wholly separated from the skull, whilst those cru­ell Pioners digged all his blood out of that precious Mine. His face livid and swolne with the unmercifull souldiers heavy Iron Gantlets bruizing and buf­feting it; His shoulders gall'd with supporting his heavy Crosse, which, Oh with what excessive paine hee did! whilst they (all raw before with their [Page 15] scourging) were, in that dolo­rous prease, even squeezed (as it weare) to a flat cake of congea­led blood and gore. Then, to have his armes violently wrack­ed out, whilest they nayled his hands unto the Crosse; What a torment that! For the nayles en­tring the most sinuous parts of them, and they shrinking (as things naturally do) at sence of paine, the fleshy, which were nayled to't, and could not recoyl nor give, must of necessity be vi­olently divulsed from them. As for his scourged body, it was all torne and mangled with their bloody whips: Wherefore at one glance of the eye to passe it [Page 16] over, as too pitious a spectacle long to be look'd upon, & come to his boared feet. How those huge boystrous Nayles must needs have torne & riven them, whilst his dying body hung swayed upon them with all its weight, is not without horrour and cold sweat to be imagined; 'Mean while, what vying was there betwixt his hands & feet, which should indure most pain and torment (all at his cost, God knowes) What tossing and re­tossing of his dolorous life with suffering betwixt them? Now this taking it at rebound, now that, till lighting in death's haz­zard, the sport ended; A cruell sport the while!

[Page 17] Then for his Senses, how were they all tormented in him, and he in all of them! His eyes in seeing-nothing but what dis­consolated and afflicted him; ei­ther his Enemies rejoycing at his suffering (which commonly as much agravates, as pity aleviates the paine o'th' sufferer) or else his friends (those few poore friends he had) so extreamly grieving at it, as even derived from them, a fresh grief to him again, and for­ced him the comforted, to be­come their their Comforter. Fi­liae Hierusalem nolite flere super me, &c. Luk. 23. 28. His ears play­ed upon from every side, with whole volleyes of fearfull blas­phemies, [Page 18] 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) [Page 19] 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 ne (que) 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 [Page 20] 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 [Page 21] 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 [Page 22] 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.

[Page 23] 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.

[Page 24] 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, 'tis 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 [Page 25] 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 effe [...]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 [Page 26] 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 [Page 27] 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!

[Page 28] 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. [Page 29] 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 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 [Page 30] 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 [Page 31] 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 àme 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 [Page 32] 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, [Page 33] 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.

[Page 35] 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 [Page 36] 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 [Page 37] 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 [Page 38] 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, [Page 39] 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 [Page 40] have reason and just cause to complaine indeed. No, these are but rags of patience the poor and wretched soule puts on, whilst the gallant and richer scornes to weare such piec'd-up stuffe; this is for those who ne­ver endevour to limb and pour­traiture in the table of their hearts, any brave and noble piece, because they never take patterne by any but base and ig­noble ones. Inspice & fac secun­dum exemplar quod tibi in monte monstratum, &c. Did they but consider our Saviours sufferings, their own would shrink to no­thing in comparison.

Which whilst she considered, [Page 41] it made her so brave in purpose and resolution, as even death it selfe would have appeared love­ly and amiable to her, which now since hee died for us, to those who truly love him, even seemes to have exchanged darts with love indeed: As thus they fable it:

And thus in various cogitati­on she wandred about (Mount Calvary affording a large and ample field for her devotion to exspaciate in) her pious thought still going in circle from her Be­loved unto her selfe, and from her selfe to him againe, untill at last it was suddenly surprized by the unexpected arivall of some new-commers there, who ten­ding directly towards the crosse, [Page 43] made her feare some ill intenti­on in it, till espying Ioseph of Aramathea, a principall amongst them, she assured her feares, there was nothing but good inten­ded; as indeed their comming onely was, to take downe the body from the Crosse, and bury it. To which every one lending a ready and pious hand, it had soone beene done, had not this impediment occurred in the do­ing it, that their griefes for his death rendred them so nigh dead themselves, as they scarcely could performe the offices of the li­ving; and those who swouned not for love of him, would swoune for verie sorrow they [Page 44] loved him not enough, confir­ming what they report with admiration of the effects of di­vine love.

Neither is it to be so much ad­mired, they thus could dye (as it were) for him; but the greatest wonder is, that they could live, now hee was dead who was their very life; hee who had so many attractive sweets in him, as drew all to him; but such, who like Scarrebs delighted to live in stench, Curremus in odo­rem unguentorum tuorum, &c. [Page 46] Hee who had such divine ma­gick in his face, as charm'd all that beheld it, and was of so ra­vishing entertainment besides, hee spake all flame and fire; Nonne cor nostrum ardens in nobis erat dum loqueretur, &c. Able to burne and dissolve the ice of as many hearts, as ever the cold of death, or tepiditie had frozen up, provided that venomous serpent had not first fixt its black tooth in them; for then the Pol­linctori will tell you, that hearts envenom'd will not burne. No wonder then (I say) that him who they so loved living, they so lamented dead: It being by Natures Lawes decreed, wee [Page 47] then should love things most passionately and deerest, when wee were deprived of them: Whether because the appetitive & irrascible power, then joynt­ly move more strongly towards the object, than can joy alone in the fruition of it; or that our sharp appetite of things wee want is soone blunted with the enjoying them. Certaine it is, whatsoever the cause be, such is the effect, as they well experien­ced everie one of them; his bles­sed mother, whilst shee called to mind, what a deere and amia­ble son; his friends, what a true and constant friend; and what a kind and loving Master his [Page 48] Disciples had lost of him: In remembrance of which, when they had buried him (as with all due rites and ceremonies of griefe they did: his sacred mo­ther embalming him with her teares, the holy Magdalen with her sweet unguents, for which her memorie is so pretious in the Gospell, as there never oc­curs mention of any, but her name enters as an Ingredient.) They departed each one with somewhat to foment their me­mories of him: One, with the thought of his sweet and gentle conversation of life; another, with that of the excessive love he declared unto them in death. [Page 49] Amongst the rest, our pious Soule, ever to have a memoriall of his passion, digged him a new monument in her bosome, and buried him in her heart.