THE AFFECTIONS OF A PIOUS soul, UNTO OUR Saviour-Christ. Expressed in a mixed Treatise of Verse and Prose. By Richard Flecknoe. LONDON, Printed by John Raworth for William Brooke, dwelling at the upper end of Holborn in Turpins' Rents, 1640. To the truly Noble, and virtuous Lady, The Lady Nevil Brooke. Madame, BEhold my one weeks' Meditation, which is yours all the year; so I presume it may not come unseasonable to you now, though that dolorous time be past, and a more joyful one ensued▪ Even so it is, by the way of sorrow, we must arrive to joy, which none in the next life can perfectly participate of with our Saviour Christ, without part of his pain and sufferings in this, Though not by Passion, yet by Compassion at least▪ So, where the effect wants, if the will want not, it is sufficient. You (Madam) are (we know) of more Eminency of Fortune, then to feel the one, but of such Eminent devotion, as the other you are not without tender feeling of, which makes me with more Confidence, approach this to your fair hands, who yield to none, in truly honouring you, RICH: FLECKNOI To The town-reader. TO tell thee true, I am both sorry and ashamed, to have spent so many idle hours with thee; and therefore to avoid the expense of more, have retired me from the town. This then to thee, is in part of acknowledgement of it, as of purpose to amend; and as this shall find acceptance, so expect at convenient leisure to hear from me again. For my disposition (if thou knowest it not) thou mayest, from this Ode of mine. (1) Free as I was borne I'll live, So should every wise man do: Only fools they are, that give Their freedoms to I know not who. (2) If my weakness cannot save it, But 'tmust go; what e'er it cost: Some more strong than I shall have it, Can make good what I have lost. (3) Still some excellency should be More i'th' Master, than the Slave, Which in others till I see, None my liberty shall have. (4) Nor is't excellency enough, Time nor Chance can mar or make; But 'tmust be more lasting stuff, Shall from me my freedom take. (5) Wherefore beauty never shall On my liberty intrude: And proud greatness lest of all, Cause 'tis proud, once to conclude. (6) Those to whom I'll give away, That which none too dear can buy, Shall be made of better clay, And have better souls than I. For the Treatise itself, by reason there are but too many of that depraved palate, to whom all seems insipid and disgustful, that is, seasoned with any taste of piety, to occur to such infirm appetites, I have served up their meat in little pieces, thus cut up unto their hands, which in greater perhaps they would not like so well. To make it a more spreading work, if I would, I could have beat it thinner, (the matter was pliable enough unto the hammer) but I like not works of that rarity, defined by the Philosopher, Sub magna quantitate substantia parva. And hold in books as in coin, those of most value in least quantity the best. That I am so frequent in Latin citation, those I am sure who are versed in the language, will easily pardon it; the rest, I hope, will not be difficile, when they shall find in the reading, the sense complete without it. If any demand, why then I inserted it, I answer, works of this fabric, consolidate and built upon authority of holy Writ, without frequent Texts of it, for foundation and cement, are worthily esteemed, but weak and loose-written things. Now that I chose the Latin to any other vulgar; I presumed, as a builder, they would give me leave to provide my materials, when I supposed them at best hand to be got. But I detain thee too long in the porch, unless with Malchus thou thinkest much to have an ear in the passion: Enter the work, and if thou receivest but as much profit in reading, as I intended thee in writing, we shall both be happy in it. Farewell: R. F. THE AFFECTIONS OF A PIOUS SOUL TO OUR Saviour Christ. UPon that day (never to be forgotten, nor ever without tears to be remembered) which stands marked to all posterity, with the black note upon it, of his death, who is the life of all, it chanced a pious soul from those remoter parts of Gallilee, consigning with the sea, came up to Jerusalem in search of our Saviour Christ. Where being arrived, she found all in noise and uproar; most part with thronging haste, flocking towards the Temple, and whispering somewhat of strange and admirable as they passed along; the rest in the streets effused, and waving up and down with the tide of several passions, here one exulting with insolent joy, another there as much depressed with grief: this, silently weeping; that, loudly jocund; so as you would have imagined both joy and grief had inhabited there together (as their extremes, they say, do near confine.) And if (as Painters note) the same lines serve to delineate both weeping and laughter too, you had seen them both expressed 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 she might demand the cause of such discrepant affection: And easily conjecturing him she sought (the exactest rule of order) there, nowhere to be found where such disorder was, retired herself to that part of the city, where Mount Calvary, like a swelling tumour arises on its side, both after so long journey to repose her wearied limbs, as also in silence and solitude of the place, to recollect a while from noise and clamour of the city 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 seems had affixed in trophy of that day's victory, three persons crucified; one of which (He whose cross stood in the midst, more eminent than the rest) as one of more regard, was circumstanced with a lamentable and lamenting sort of women, weak of sex, yet of mighty grief, few in number, but equal to many in affliction, the woes of a thousand being in every one. 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 universal body, the grief of every one was in part her own.) Where being arrived, she might perceive Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary her sister of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalen to be three of them, with whom being long conjoined in affection; by holy sympathy, she soon became familiar with their grief, ere with their cause of grieving; and wept to see them weep. So long she continued weeping, & as long ignorant, why (Grief having so stopped up the passages of their voices, they could not arrive to words, and her tears drawn such a watery curtain before her eyes, she could not discern who they bemoaned so, only thus much she might perceive, his face (Whosoever he was) was so defaced with blood, as a clearer and less clouded eye than hers, might well be excused, it's not reading the contents of it; until at length, one of that sorrowful company giving first a heave or two, like one oppressed under some ponderous weight, to raise her words above her woes, burst forth into this short exclamation, O jesu, jesu; and said no more. At this she straight great with suspicion (as sorrow is ever pregnant of suspect to be delivered of it, (like those who seek what willingly they would not find, and but hunt their own fears with curiosity) demanded of another, who it was they lamented so. When she surveying her with a wondering eye: And are you alone (said she) so much stranger not only to Jerusalem, but to the world, to be ignorant who they have crucified here. Can you feel the earthquake under you, and not know it is for his suffering who made the earth? Can you behold the Heavens▪ the Sun and moon, lost in Cimmerian darkness, and not perceive he who enlightened them is here eclipsed? Look upon yonder rock, it cleft (senseless as it is) that instant as he died, and what a heart have you then, not to be so much as sensible of his death? But I forget myself, and whilst I seek to find you out a grief (by invasion of speech) have almost lost mine own; wherefore let me tell you in a word, and then make good my silence; It is Jesus of Nazareth they have crucified here. At hearing of which, it was no grief, no passion of the living that ceased her; but such a stupidity, as death could not have rendered her more immovable for the time, so true it is, Curae leves loquuntur ingentes stupent: Senec. until at last, as if but then, the floodgates of her tears were drawn up, they gushed forth in such abundance, as if each drop had striven to fall first to the ground. In so much, as had you beheld Niobe weeping her children's loss, you had seen an image, & but an image only of her weeping him; and yet in this excess of tears and grief, as if she had been all defective to exstimulate her heart, the more to grieve, and excitate affection to weep the more: In a sad and mournful accent she delivered this, To excitate the affection. Am I a Christian then, or no? I can behold Christ suffering so, And feel no woe? Though none, yet soft humanity Should make one man commiserate, When he beholds another die, Such interest hath he in the State: So very jufidels we see, Are not from pity free. Then am I man, or am I none? That can consider him as one, And make no moan? Yet were I none, the Sun, the moon, And such as but his creatures are, Would cause me feel his sufferings soon, Unless I were more senseless far, More dull than very rocks and stones, That now burst forth in groans. Am I a creature then, or not? That my Creators so hard lot Should be forgot? For sure I'm none; but nothing I Can let (yet let not one tear fall) Both God and man, and Maker die, As I were not concerned withal: Nothing 'mongst Christians, Creatures, men Am I? or worser then? Oh me, the whilst worthy of deepest hell, If I without a tear can see dim dye, More infidel than infidel, More stone than stones; les man, the man am I. Having done this, she began to weep again; then shriek, as if her soul would with her voice have sallied forth, accompanying her lamentations now with wringing her hands, now tearing her hair; Architect Sorrow never contriving building, where was more variety of sad prospective; until at last echo being sooner wearied with repeating her plaints than she with uttering them, to give it ease a while, though not herself, she set her silent thoughts to task with the account of what her dearly Beloved had done & suffered for her, summing up every particular most exact and carefully, as it was delivered her in Inventory, by one was present there. As first (and in general) how voluntarily he offered himself to sufferance for us: Oblatus est quia ipse voluit: Isa. 53. Even to the pointing out himself unto them, who came to apprehend him with an Ego sum: Whence (said she) we may collect, (If we would be reciprocal) there is a kind of will and forwardness requisite on our parts, in suffering for him again. Next and in particular, what sufferings they were, he offered himself unto; As how not one part alone, but all, even from head to foot, every sense of him, and the whole exterior and interior man, was even surfeited (as it were) with the bread of dolour and affliction Saturabitur opprobriis, &c. His head crowned with thorns, and those such rigid and sharp-pointed ones, as the very skin of it was wholly separated from the skull, whilst those cruel pioneers digged all his blood out of that precious Mine. His face livid and swollen with the unmerciful soldiers heavy Iron gauntlets bruising and buffeting it; His shoulders galled with supporting his heavy cross, which, Oh with what excessive pain he did! whilst they (all raw before with their scourging) were, in that dolorous press, even squeezed (as it wear) to a flat cake of congealed blood and gore. Then, to have his arms violently wracked out, whilst they nailed his hands unto the cross; What a torment that! For the nails entering the most sinuous parts of them, and they shrinking (as things naturally do) at sense of pain, the fleshy, which were nailed to't, and could not recoil nor give, must of necessity be violently divulsed from them. As for his scourged body, it was all torn and mangled with their bloody whips: Wherefore at one glance of the eye to pass it over, as too piteous a spectacle long to be looked upon, & come to his bored feet. How those huge boisterous nails must needs have torn & riven them, whilst his dying body hung swayed upon them with all its weight, is not without horror and cold sweat to be imagined;' Mean while, what vying was there betwixt his hands & feet, which should endure most pain and torment (all at his cost, God knows) 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 hazard, the sport ended; A cruel sport the while! 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 rejoicing at his suffering (which commonly as much aggravates, as pity alleviates the pain o'th' sufferer) or else his friends (those few poor friends he had) so extremely 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 volleys of fearful blasphemies, as: alios salvos fecit seipsum non potest salvum facere, He could save others, and cannot save himself Matth. 27. 42. Or else with such bitter scorns and taunts as these, Si Rex Israel est descendat de cruce &c. Let him now descend from the cross 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 (Unless perhaps he were enamoured of grief as sure he was that day, even to Espouse it on the cross and take denomination from thence, of vir dolorum, the very husband of it, as Esaias had prophesied of him long before) For his smelling I will not offend the nice & delicate with commemorating the abominable stench of those filthy and loathsome Crachets (the very Entrails of the Jews 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 administered it to sweeten the bitterness of death, but Gall and Vinegar; When for other Malefactors most pleasant wines were allowed & provided at the public cost; O it was cruel! barbarous cruel that! But he foresaw it necessary for us (whilst we live here where the wheel of affliction, with variety of new suffering every day fetches its turn 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 unspeakable what he felt. But alas all this of the exterior compared to his Interior sufferings, 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 soul, as an instrument strung with finer strings than the body, is of more delicate resentment, more sensible of every little touch; And how rudely did they play upon it? He could not speak to them, though nothing but sugar and honey, like the bridegroom in the Canticles; but in churlish and bitter speech they repartyed again. If in soft and silken phrase he questioned them, either in pure disdain and spite, they not vouchsafed 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, every one accompanied with a stone, so cross, so contrary were they in words unto him: But in action, it goes a thought beyond imagination, how contrary they were, putting sinister interpretation still, to disguise the right meaning, on whatsoever he did. If he cured their sick, it was to break their Sabbath; if he cast their Devils out, it was in the name of Beelzebub. They held him for Libertine, if he eat or drunk with them, if not for Samaritan; so well he 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, cried: 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 mark how this perverse, wicked, and viperous generation (outdoing spite itself) requited him for love with hatred; for good, with ill; and for honouring them, with dishonouring him again. And first of their hatreds to him, let this be sufficient argument, that they could not so much as endure his sight (and when we once withdraw our eyes from any one, 'tis sign we have withdrawn our affection before) but whilst he projected such right and full beams of love on them, as even reflected them to his very heart; the sons of Jacob never, with more oblique & averted eyes, beheld their brother Joseph, than they did him. Now if (as they say) the chiefest attraction of love be love, and he holds no commercewith humanity, who will nor give, nor take affection: What should one think or say of this malignity? But for more ample declaration of their inhumanity to him, we are to note; how that hate and aversion from a thing, which the more civil creature doth express by simple flight and avoidance; the more savage and effe●ate doth by violent assault: So Naturalists observe in the wild Bull, such hatred and nociveness to man, as but object unto it the picture of one, and presently with horn & hoof it furiously sets upon it. And mark now, if they did not the like by him, when Pilate proposing him unto them with an, Ecce homo, Behold the man; they stantly bellowed out, Crucifige, crucifige eum; Let him be crucified; so as he might well say of them, Tauri pingues obsiderunt me; that he was encompassed with Bulls on every side. But the proof 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 again, and so consider how they rewarded him, for good with ill. You know we have compassion for none, but those we have passion for; and where the soil is hate, there pity never grows. Now what compassion had he for them? Miserior super turbam, &c. and that not only in words, but in effect, multiplying bread for the hungry, and for the thirsty, (for those who were necessitous) he (as we may say) turned stones into water; for the delicious, he turned water into wine (sweetly violencing all natures but theirs the while) for their sick, he restored them unto health, their dead unto life again. (To say nothing of his spiritual benefits, since they were of nature so carnal, they had scarce a capacity 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 pity, these pursue him farther than ever any's did (within the limits of humanity) not only to death, but even after it, when, Unus militum lancea latus ejus aperuit et continuo exivit sanguis et aqua: One of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance, and presently there streamed forth blood and water. A barbarism and inhumanity, no water could expiate enough, but that which then issued from his sacred side; no fire, but of that charity which made him then shed his last drop of blood. But to proceed; for his food, they repaid 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! unparalleled wickedness, never to be wrapped up in silence, nor never unfolded in speech, but with detestation! men worthy to be banished human society, so little of man they had in them! but whither? for beasts were less beasts than they, Bos enim cognovit possessorem suum, &c. Devils, less 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 devil; let them still be Jews, sacrilegious in all, both to the God that made them, and the god they made; which if it were self-interest (as of most wicked mortals it is) most sacrilegious were they even to that. Now how for honouring them, they repaid him with dishonouring him again; and how whilst (in a manner) his whole endeavour was to exalt them above all other people, theirs only was under all others to depress 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 meekness and humility, Discite àme quia mitis sum et humilis corde, &c. A thief to one who had given them all they had: De cujus plenitudine omnes accepimus. And a murderer to him, from whom they had received their very lives and being, In ipso enim vivimns, movemur et sumus, &c. O good God— But it is better to say nothing here, than not to say enough; and let Silence, the tongue of Admiration, take up, where ours of necessity must leave: This was such an affront, such an indignity! as (we may imagine) sunk (Heavy as lead) so deep into the bottom of his divine heart▪ no human thought hath fathom-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 down, you might perceive her, by often varying colour; gesture of body, and motion of the eye, taking all the several forms of grief, of pity, of indignation, and the like, as in so tender a soul could be impressed, till arriving to this last period, she was so brimful of affection, as able to contain no more: Thus at the foot of the cross she poured it forth. The Affection. A Dithyrambus in contemplation of our Saviour crucified. O God, and is it thou I see here suffering under their hands now, Under whose feet both heaven and earth do bow, And is it thou? I hear Them so blaspheme, as my affrighted ear Even tingles with dire horror of't, and fear? O me, What do I hear and see? O ears amazed with hearing, eyes with seeing, O endless goodness of an endless being! Dear heart, that hadst the heart, With such a life o part: Dear life that couldst forgo A soul that loved thee so, And O dear 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 grudge Thee this small hart, as 'twere too much? Shall I be so peorly near, To hold my life for thee too dear? Or think my soul too much for thee, Who nothing thoughtst enough for me? Oh no, I am thy thrall, And here before thee prostrate fall Offering up heart, life, soul, and all. And being armed with this strong and virtuous resolve, how she longed like some young and noble warrior, to experience her yet untried force and valour, in the encounter with some adversary pain, perplexity, or distress, might put her bravely to it; that whilst in any part or sense of her, she, found a difficulty 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 she fainted, or lost heart cry out with that great Champion of the Apostles, Quis nos seperabit à charitate Christi, &c. What is it can separate us from the charity of Christ? Tribulatio, an angustia? &c. Encouraging herself, and resuming a strength from thence to dare and challenge the worst of affliction. And this from no self-presumption neither (She well knowing how of herself 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 she say) I can do nothing I, but God and I can do all: And if any imagine it a presumption to name myself with God, let them know I hold it a greater presumption for any to name themselves without him. How gladly for his sake would she have embraced a contumely and scorn, would have abhorred an eye of flesh & blood (I mean such eyes as the devil opened in Paradise long since; not such as our Saviour opened on the cross to day) how greedily would she have put up an injury and affront, even as a jewel in the cabinet of her heart, to wear on that general day, when all our bravery here; shall be quite out of fashion, and they only accounted gloriously brave, who have such jewels as those to wear: And never stood on such nice terms, 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 been far more tolerable, &c. And (I pray) from whom could our Saviour less have expected the payment of those injuries and affronts (which passed so currently with him) than from the Jews, whom he had obliged not only with all the ties of humanity, but of divinity 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 royal Stem: of such dignity of aspect, as it was said of him, Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum: He was fair and lovely above the sons of men. And to conclude, of life and manners so irreprehensible, as he put his very 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 aggrieved, 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 find it so, I'll say they have reason and just cause to complain indeed. No, these are but rags of patience the poor and wretched soul puts on, whilst the gallant and richer scorns to wear such pieced-up stuff; this is for those who never endeavour to limb and portraiture in the table of their hearts, any brave and noble piece, because they never take pattern by any but base and ignoble ones. Inspice & fac secundum exemplar quod tibi in monte monstratum, &c. Did they but consider our saviour's sufferings, their own would shrink to nothing in comparison. Which whilst she considered, it made her so brave in purpose and resolution, as even death itself would have appeared lovely and amiable to her, which now since he died for us, to those who truly love him, even seems to have exchanged darts with love indeed: As thus they fable it: Love and death o'th' way once meeting, Having past a friendly greeting, Sleep, their weary eyelids closing, Laid 'em down, themselves reposing: Love, whom divers cares molested, Could not sleep; but whilst death rested, All in haste away he posts him, But his haste full dearly costs him. For it chanced that going to sleeping, Both had given their darts in keeping Unto Night, who, Errors mother, Blindly knowing not one from tother, Gave Love deaths, and ne'er perceived it, Whilst as blindly Love received it: Since which time their darts confounding, Love now kills in stead of wounding: Death a joy in hearts distilling, Sweetly wounds in stead of killing. And thus in various cogitation she wandered 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 herself, and from herself to him again, until at last it was suddenly surprised by the unexpected arrival of some new-commers there, who tending directly towards the cross, made her fear some ill intention in it, till espying Joseph of Aramathea, a principal amongst them, she assured her fears, there was nothing but good intended; as indeed their coming only was, to take down the body from the cross, and bury it. To which every one lending a ready and pious hand, it had soon been done, had not this impediment occurred in the doing it, that their griefs for his death rendered them so nigh dead themselves, as they scarcely could perform the offices of the living; and those who swooned not for love of him, would swoon for very sorrow they loved him not enough, confirming what they report with admiration of the effects of divine love. O heavenly darts Of love, unto heaven loving hearts; Whether ye wound or spare, How equally ye mortal are? For if ye wound them, presently They with the sweetness die; And if ye spare 'em, then With bitterness they die again. O sacred flame To hearts, once melted in the same, Whether or no ye burn, How both to their destruction turn? For if ye burn, they presently In flames consume and die: If not, in tears they then Consume, and die again. So as like two ways that run Their several course, then join in one; And whilst diversely they tend, One and the same is still their end. So both equally destroy, Be it sorrow, be it joy; Or in water, or in flame, The end of both is still the same. Neither is it to be so much admired, they thus could die (as it were) for him; but the greatest wonder is, that they could live, now he was dead who was their very life; he who had so many attractive sweets in him, as drew all to him; but such, who like scarabs delighted to live in stench, Curremus in odorem unguentorum tuorum, &c. He who had such divine magic in his face, as charmed all that beheld it, and was of so ravishing entertainment besides, he spoke all flame and fire; Nonne cor nostrum ardens in nobis erat dum loqueretur, &c. Able to burn and dissolve the ice of as many hearts, as ever the cold of death, or tepidity had frozen up, provided that venomous serpent had not first fixed its black tooth in them; for then the Pollinctori will tell you, that hearts envenomed will not burn. No wonder then (I say) that him who they so loved living, they so lamented dead: It being by nature's laws decreed, we then should love things most passionately and dearest, when we were deprived of them: Whether because the appetitive & irascible power, then jointly move more strongly towards the object, than can joy alone in the fruition of it; or that our sharp appetite of things we want is soon blunted with the enjoying them. Certain it is, whatsoever the cause be, such is the effect, as they well experienced every one of them; his blessed mother, whilst she called to mind, what a dear and amiable son; his friends, what a true and constant friend; and what a kind and loving Master his Disciples had lost of him: In remembrance of which, when they had buried him (as with all due rites and ceremonies of grief they did: his sacred mother embalming him with her tears, the holy Magdalen with her sweet unguents, for which her memory is so precious in the gospel, 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. Amongst the rest, our pious soul, ever to have a memorial of his passion, digged him a new monument in her bosom, and buried him in her heart. FINIS.