Chapter 80

Wherein is prosecuted the tenderness of the love of Christ towards men; and of that, which caused his interior grief; and gave him a Cross to carry, in his hart, all the days of his life.

BY that which is said, thou wilt have seen, how many, and how grienous, the sorrows of our Lord were; since our sins, by which they were caused, were so many, & so grievous. But if we will dig into the most deep part of that hart of our Lord, we shall find sorrow therein; not only for the sins, that men committed; but sorrow also, for the sins which they committed not. For as the pardon of the former, fell¹ upon thee, O Lord; so the preservation of men from the later, did cost thee dolours, and death. Since thy grace, and those divine favours, which preserve men from sin, are not given to any soul, for any reason, but only upon the price of thy precious pain. So that all men lay heavy load on thee, O Lord; both great, and small, and past, and present, and they that are to come; They who have sinned; and they also who have not sinned; They who have sinned much; & they who have sinned little. For they all, being considered in themselves, were the children of wrath; without the grace of God, inclined to all manner of sin, and exiled from heaven. And if they be to receive pardon; if they be to receive grace; if to avoid sin; if to be the Sons of God; if to enjoy him in heaven for all eternity, all this, O Lord is to be done at thy cost; by thy enduring, bv thy paying, for our misery; and by thy purchasing of our felicity. Yea, and all this is to be at that cost of thine, so far, as that thy sorrows, are to be proportionable in number, and greatness, to that which these other things are worth. And yet further, is thy price to exceed the thing which thou dost buy, that so thou mayst show us thy love, and that our redemption, and consolation may be more firm.

How² extremely dear, O Lord, doth that name cost thee, which Isay³ put upon thee, of being, The Father of that age, which was then to come; since as there is no man, according to the generation of flesh, which is called, the first age, who cometh not from Adam; so neither is there any of the second generation, which is of grace, who cometh not from thee. But Adam was an ill Father; who, by wicked pleasure, did murder both himself, and his sons; whereas thou, O Lord, didst purchase the name of Father, at the price of those dolorous lamentations, whereby (as a Lioness that were roaring whilst she bringeth forth her young ones) thou givest life to them, whom the first Father killed. He drunk that poison, which the serpent gave, & so was made a Father of serpents; for by his engendering them, they became sinners. But yet all his sons (which being considered in themselves are venomous serpents) did lay hold O Lord upon thy hart; & gave thee such pinches of pain, as were never felt before, nor since, and that, not only during the space of eightteen hours (which passed in the time of thy sacred Passion) but for the whole course of three and thirty years, from one five and twentith of March, when thou didst become incarnate, till another five and twentith of March, and eight days after, when thy life did leave thee, upon the Cross.

Thy⁴ self, did call thyself a Mother, when speaking to Jerusalem thou didst say; How often⁵ would I have gathered thy children, under my wings, as the Hen doth her chickens, but thou wouldst not? And to give us to understand, that thy hart, doth carry a particular love, and tenderness towards us; thou didst compare thyself to a Hen, which is the creature, that is content, in extraordinary manner, to cast away her comfort, and to afflict herself for that which concerneth her little ones. Nor only art thou like the Hen in this; but thou exceedest both that, & all other mothers in the world, as by⁶ Isay, thyself didst say, A mother perhaps may forget the son of her womb; well yet, though she forget him, I will not forget thee; for I have written thee in my hands; and thy walls, do ever stand before me. Who, O Lord, shall be able, though he dig never so deep, to discover those unspeakable secrets, of love and sorrow, which are in thy hart. Thou dost not content thyself, O Lord, with carrying the loan of a Father towards us, which might only be strong, and patiented, in suffering the afflictions and troubles of a Father; but to the end that no delightful comfort might be wanting to us, not no vexation to thyself, thou wouldst needs, be also a Mother to us, in the tenderness of thy affection, which causeth an unspeakable kind of love towards her children. Yea, and more art thou to us, than a Mother; for, of no Mother have we read, that (to the end she might still remember her son) she hath written a book, whereof hard nails of iron were the pen; and her own hands the paper; and that by pressing those hands, and passing them through, with the nails, blood may issue out, instead of ink; which with grievous pain, may give testimony, of the great internal love, not suffering that to be forgotten, which still she carrieth in her hands.

And if this, which thou didst endure upon the Cross by having hands and feet so nailed to it, be a thing which exceedeth all love of Mothers; who⁷ shall recount that great love, and great grief, wherewith thou drewest all men into the womb of thy hart, groaning deeply for their sins, with the groans of labour, like them of childbirth. And that, not for an hour, nor for a day alone, but for the whole time of thy life, which lasted three and thirty years; till, at length, like another Rachel, thou diedst of travel, upon the Cross, to the end that⁸ Benjamin, might be borne alive. The serpents which thou carriedst within thyself, did give thee, O Lord, such gripes, that they made thee burst upon the Cross, to the end, that, at the price of thy pains, those serpents might be converted, into the simplicity, & mildness, of lambs; and that, in exchange of thy death, they might obtain a life of grace. How justly O Lord, mayst thou call men (if thou considerest, what thou hast suffered for them) the Sons of thy grief, as Rachel called her son; since the grief which their sins gave thee, was greater, than the pleasure which they took by committing them. And greater was thy humility, and that breach of thy hart; then the irreverence, and pride was, which they expressed against the most high God, when they offended him, by breaking his law; that so, thy pains might overcome our sins, as the greater do the less.

More,⁹ O Lord, did the sins of others grieve thee, than any man hath been ever grieved, for his own. And if we read of some, who had so great repentance for their sins; as that (their hart not being able to contain such grief) it did cost them their lives; what sorrow was provoked in thee, by that unmeasurable love, which thou didst carry both to God and man; since one spark of the same lone, being cast into the hearts of those others, did oppress them in such sort, that it made them break, as if they had been blown up with powder. Of many we read, and we know; that, by having heard a news, which was very painful to them, did lose their lives. And tell us now O Lord, for thy mercy, how thou hadst force to outlive such a bitter news; when, all the sins of all mankind were first presented to thee; thou loving men, much more, than any man, ever loved another, yea or even himself. Especially, when thou didst consider, & know, that the misery which was hanging over them for the same, was greater than any other that could happen. And where O Lord didst thou get strength, to endure, to see thy divinity offended; and yet to live; since the love which thou bearest both to it and men, did exceed all measure. Yet didst thou live, O Lord, when thou heardst this news; yea and thou didst live with the grief thereof, all the days of the life. But unless particular force, had been given thee for the enduring of such sorrow, it would not have failed, to have brought death upon thee, as less sorrow, hath brought it upon others. So that, O Lord, they are many, and not one only debt, which I own thee. And although, (in regard of these sorrows, which, as a mother, thou didst endure for men) with much reason, thou mayst term them, the sons of thy grief, as hath been said; yet as thou also art their Father, thou mayst call them also, the sons of thy right hand, as¹⁰ jacob did. Because¹¹ in them, is expressed, and declared the greatness of thy hand, which is thy power; since thou drawest them out of sin, and dost place them in the state of grace, even in this life; and at the later day shalt rank them, upon thy right hand, that so they may accompany thee in glory. Being seated there, in great security of repose, as thou art, O Lord, at the right hand of thy Father; where thou wilt esteem all that which thou hast laboured, and suffered for them, to be well employed.

Footnotes

1. We own all to the passion of our Lord; both the pardon of all those sins, which we have committed, & the prevention of all them which we have not committed; and all the graces which we have received; & all the good deeds that we have done. ↩

2. Infinite is the glory of our Lord, but it cost him dear ↩

3. Isa. 9 ↩

4. The great love of God to us, is exemplified by diverse comparisons, and proofs of holy Scripture. ↩

5. Watt: 23. ↩

6. Isa. 49. ↩

7. Christ lesus our Lord, became upon the Cross, as it were a woman in travail. ↩

8. Genes. 35. ↩

9. The incomparable grief of Christ our Lord, for sin is excellently desa●ibed. ↩

10. Gen. 35. ↩

11. The reformation of men, doth manifest the power of the Cross of Christ our Lord. ↩