a band which ought to fasten and unite us unto God 9 It is not my designe to entertaine you with prescribing you instructions for the reception of these two Sacraments since you have so many Bookes which treat of it I will onely say that if ever you stand in need of all the Entertainments which I have newly given you it ought to be in the reception of these two Sacraments which are two fountaines of love and mercy For love and recollection by the presence of God as I have explicated serve us for a disposition to prepare us to receive worthily the Sacrament of Penance and the Eucharist I beseech our Lord Jesus Christ who came into this world to establish therein the Kingdome of charity and to bring thither the fire of his love and who died on the Crosse to draw us unto God and withdrawn from death the world and sin that he will vouchsafe to give us the grace to feele and he are the effects of his Crosse I beseech him to consume us in the flames of his love and to fasten us so indissolubly unto himself as wee may never more sever our selves from him but that he would place us rather in a happy inability of offending him and in a more blessed servitude never more to estrange and separate our selves from him nor to act any thing but for his fake Amen MEDITATIONS Upon the Principall Mysteries of the Passion of JESUS CHRIST PREFACE IT is a great happinesse for a man to be able to entertain himselfe with God and to speak to him as often as he desireth He may do it by vocall and mentall Prayer wherein he treats with his God It is a favour which Jesus Christ hath acquired for him for it is by him saith the Apostle that we have accesse unto God I call it a favour in as much as man having severed himselfe from God by sinne and being expelled out of his presence and banished from his amiable company the Sonne of God came into the world to expiate sinne and to establish both in heaven and earth a new alliance between God and Man One of the meanes which Jesus Christ himselfe hath left us to preserve our selves in this happy alliance and the way which he hath pointed out to bring us neer unto God is Prayer for by Prayer we enter into society with God we entertain our selves with him we elevate and unite our selves unto him and treat with him of the ineffable Grandeurs of his Divinity of che effects of his incomprehensible goodnesse of the necessities and miseries of our life finally by a holy commerce we speak to God and God vouchsafes to speak to us There are an infinity of objects upon which the soule may entertain her selfe with God and forme her meditations for as God is an inexhaustible sea of greatnesse so is he the object of an infinite entertainment unto a Christian soule But the most reasonable most profitable and easiest subject wherein our Spirit may imploy it selfe is the life and death the depressions and humiliations the torments and sufferances of Jesus Christ For as much as in the misteries of the Passion and in all the moments of the life and death of Iesus the soule discerns therein the excessive love which God beareth us In the sufferings and ignominies of the Crosse she conceives the weight of sinne and the punishments which our crimes doe merit And considering what Iesus Christ hath done what he hath said and his holy and adorable Vertues in all the misteries of his death she learns thereby the Vertues which she ought to practice and the way which she is to follow to attaine unto the glory which Iesus Christ himself hath acquired for her at the price of life and precious bloud It is for this reason devout Reader that having undertaken to present you with Entertainments conformable to the common life of all Christians I have added the Meditations upon the principall misteries of the death of the Sonne of God to the end you may make use of them for your advancement in the love and feare of God and that by often considering them you may learne to imitate his Vertues and place your glory and affiance in the death of Christ Iesus Would to God you could say with S. Paul I will no longer glory but in the Crosse of my Iesus I will place my content and love therein I will follow him in the Crosse that I may possesse him in glory This is that which I desire of you with my whole heart and I wish that the death of the Sonne of God may be the Spirit and life of your soule The Prayer of IESUS in the Garden Point I. COnsider the love which God the Father beareth you deprivâ—ng his Sonne of joy and glory to invest him with sorrow and load him with paines and reproaches exposing him unto the rigors of tin divine Iustice for the expiation of your offences Desire ardently that this selfe same spirit of love may divest you of all vanity selfe-love and your own private interest A Prayer to the eternall Father I Adore your goodnesse O eternall Father and the love which invited you to give me your Sonne to set him in the opprobriousnesse of the Crosse and to victimate him in the sufferances of an ignominious death that he might be my Saviour and my Jesus The love which you beare me hath beene the cause that you have not spared your own Sonne but have cloathed him with our infirmities and loaden him with the confusion and paines which I have merited to undergoe for my offences After so great a benefit is it not just for mee to love you How happy should I be O God of mercy if you would fill my heart with this love how happy should I be if you would consume mee in the flames of this divine fire It is all that I desire and a grace which I aske of you above all the graces which you can give me Grant then O God of goodnesse that I unloofe my selfe from all other love to love you alone grant that the power of your love may strip mee of all vanity and annihilate my selfe-love to the end loving nothing but you I may live onely for you Point II. BEhold how the Sonne of God lies prostrated on the ground bearing the weight and confusion of the sins of the whole world and in this sort he is made the object of the anger of God You have your part therein by reason of your sins beg then of him the engraving in your soule a desire and ability to satisfie for your offences and the granting you a true contrition for your sinnes PRAYER ALas what shall I doe for if my Iesus who is the Power of Heaven if my Iesus who is the vertue of God falls and remaines under the weight of my offences what will become of me and how shall I beare them when dying I shall be presented before the Tribunall of the
to receive of Judas the kisse of Treason how you present your hands and abandon your adorable body to the rage of Devills and to the malice of men and sinners to dispose of you and your life in whatsoever cruelty could suggest unto them Alas who is able O my sweet Iesus to imitate you I fervently desire it but acknowledge my owne impotency for I feele contradiction in my selfe and tremble at this thought However leave me not O Saviour of my soule in case I am not able to imitate you in all things at least let me doe it in what I may and I can doe much if you give me your grace Open then my eyes that I may discerne what I am change my heart that it may affect what you love and animate my spirit humbly to indure all contempts and confusions All that I am now able to doe in the presence of your Soveraigne Majesty is to accuse my malice to condemne my pride and to offer unto you my will my heart and soule to order them as you please Succour my infirmity fortifie my weaknesse breake my obstinacy and by the fire of your love be pleased to consume all my iniquity IESUS is fastned and scourged at the Pillar Point I. SHead you not tears of love and compassion beholding Jesus the Beauty of Heaven and the Glory of Paradise exposed to the cruelty of barbarous men fastned all naked to a Pillar to make you a bath of his bloud and to cleanse the staines of your soule Give him thanks and render him teares of love contrition for the bloud which he hath given you in this mystery PRAYER MY Iesus Grant that my heart may break with griefe and my soule dissolve in your love for you oblige me to it by your benefits And to say truly who can choose but love you seeing that by the excesse of the love which you beare us you have expos'd your selfe to the rage of Devills and to the malice of sinners And why shall I not break my heart asunder with sorrow and contrition since by my offences I am the occasion of the pains which you suffer How farre more just were it O Saviour of the world that you should remaine in your Glory in the Throne of your greatnesse and that I who have rendred my selfe the slave of sinne and of my passions should be fastned to this Pillar and torn with the scourges of your justice But since your love is content to make paiment for mee grant that I may love you as I ought and no longer offend you This is my intention I desire it with my whole heart and I beg it of you with an entire affection Point II. CHrist Jesus upon the Pillar put on the condition of a slave and criminall to beare the effects of the rage of Devills and men He remaines there in the midst of them like a Lamb victimated and abandoned of his Father deserted by his Apostles and afflicted by all creatures Compassionate this state of Jesus and beg of him that from henceforth you may remaine abandoned and resigned unto all that he shall ordaine PRAYER A Las my Jesus I have made the debt and you have paid it it is I it is I who am guilty and you are punished it is I unhappy that I am who have irritated Heaven and rendred my selfe unworthy of all your favours I both know and confesse that I deserve nothing but hell and for my sins to be sacrificed unto the divine Justice which I have so often contemned but your goodnesse which seekes nothing but my Salvation by a prodigy of love makes an admirable exchange For you enter O Saviour of my Soul into my condition and loading your selfe with my offences you are now victimated like an innocent Lambe and left to the Justice of God abandoned on all sides and plunged into to all sorts of sufferances What lesse can I doe O my Iesus in recognition of this love then adore your goodnesse and abandon my selfe entirely to you to be what you please I give my selfe then unto this mystery and offer my selfe unto you to beare the effects thereof in such a manner as you desire Point III. THe Body of Jesus is covered all over with wounds from the very head to the feet and exhausted of bloud and strength Consider that the wounds drops of bloud you see on it are as so many tongues which enunciate to you his love and teach you how you ought to love him in humiliations and sufferances Offer unto him your life your body and bloud never to imploy them but for his glory PRAYER I Am yours O good Iesus my soule my life my body and bloud are no longer mine but yours in respect that for my sake you make a profusion of your owne bloud you abandon your body unto wounds and sufferances your soule and life you give to me upon the Crosse After all these graces and favours shall I not be yours No no Lord all these drops of bloud which you shed and all the wounds of your body are so many tongues which condemne my ingratitude and invite me to your love I am willing to love and from this very instant and for ever I desire to be wholly yours and resolve to love nothing but you alone Bruise bend breake and oppresse my soule if you please combat my life with a thousand afflictions make me suffer as long as you please yet will I never utter any other words then that I am yours and that I love you alone IESUS is crowned with Thornes Point I. THe love which Jesus beares us exerciseth on him the power and rigours thereof love placeth him amongst thornes and even death it selfe love exposeth him unto mockeries spittings buffets and the contempt of his enemies Consider all this and beg of Jesus that the selfe-same love may exercise on you the power thereof Offer your selfe unto all the effects which he shall vouchsafe to produce in your soule bee it in the thornes of Penance or in the death of your vices and earthly affections PRAYER O How happy should I be if your love would once take Empire over my heart Let not the fault be mine for I desire it I seeke it and offer my selfe wholly to you to beare the effects thereof Grant then Lord grant speedily that the power of your love may deeply wound my soule In loving you nothing will be difficult for me in this world for if love hath cloathed you O good Iesus with our miseries and loaden you with our sinnes if love hath fastned you on the Crosse what will it not worke on me if it raigne there and exercise his power Then would it be that I should truly die unto my selfe to live in you that I should despise all things to love you alone and that stimulated by this love I should satisfie for my past crimes never more to commit the like But when will that blessed houre arrive that I shall love
be esteemed and honoured by men Wherefore in view of the contempt which you indure I purpose to alter my course of life and to imitate you if I can and with this resolution I cast my selfe at your feet O my Iesus I adore your profound humility I implore the power of this vertue to come upon me and I give my selfe intirely to you to beare the effects thereof in such sort as to you shall seem good I know very well that I ought to affect humiliations confusions and contempts I know that they are my portion they are the most conformable to my state since I am a sinner But my perverted spirit and quite corrupted nature is averse thereunto Neverthelesse Lord I will love you succour only my weaknesse annihilate my aversions and fortifie my will that I may put in practise the good resolution which I have taken in your presence Point III. IESUS beares the Rigours Dolours and Humiliations which our sinnes have merited It is for this cause he presents himselfe unto the people to suffer and unto his Father to satisfie his justice Cast your selfe at his feet O my soule and say affectionately Behold the man whom I seeke for he is my Jesus my Saviour and my All I see him I embrace him and I resolve that he shall be my King and reigne alone in my heart PRAYER AT the sight of what you act and suffer for me O my Iesus I remaine distracted and fall into a kind of rapture for what am I Lord And what need have you of me that you should seeke my salvation at the cost of so many labours What is there in my soule capable of inviting you to offer your selfe unto your Father to appease by your torments his Justice which I have irritated by my offences Surely is is nothing but love which exercising the power and rigour thereof made you become man and suffer death for me O Love how powerfull art thou since thou hast reduced my Iesus into state wherein I contemplate him in his life and death O Love how strong is thine arme since thou hast drawne my Iesus from the Throne of his glory to place him in humiliations and to subject him to so many paines Love if thou hast power over my God must not thou have it over my heart No there is no meanes to withstand it whatsoever it costs I must love him who hath loved us more then his own life who in giving himselfe requires nothing but our love I resigne my self then unto you ô Love of my Soule to love you with my whole heart Grant onely if you please that I may love nothing but you for you both command and oblige me to love you I am content but unable to do it without your grace Effect then this work in me of loving you and loosen my heart from all earthly affections to the end I may entirely unite my selfe to you And be pleased to give mee a holy inability which may render me uncapable of severing my selfe from you and of loving any other IESUS carrieth his Crosse Point I. COnsider the hunger and insatiable thirst the extreme love and desire which Jesus hath to suffer for us having never said It is enough nor refusing any torments which are inflicted on him allowing all persons to torture him Ask of Jesus that he would vouchsafe to estrange you from the pleasures of the world and admit no longer any repugnancy in your selfe to indure for his sake PRAYER O Amiable Iesus How just is it that I now confesse the excesse of your love and acknowledge the mercies which you shew me for you are not satisfied in purchasing me by the profusion of your bloud and appeasing the divine Justice by your death but excited by the love which you beare me and by a desire of my salvation you expose your selfe to all sorts of confusions and by a divine patience you refuse no tortures and shun no paines which impiety invents to make you suffer At the sight of so much goodnesse and at the object of your vertues what can I do lesse whereby I may become the most acceptable to you then imitate your life and imbrace with you all crosses and sufferances For I know you have said of it that he is unworthy of you who beares not his crosse with you and refuses to follow you I purpose then O Saviour of my soule I purpose willingly to follow you and renouncing my owne pleasures sufferance shall be my onely love and delight I cannot effect it without your grace be pleased therefore to bestow it on me for without you I can do nothing and with you I am inabled to doe all things Point II. IESUS loaden with his Crosse sinkes under the burthen not of the heavinesse of the wood but under the weight of our offences wherewith he charged himselfe before the Iustice of his Father And in view of the whole world he carrieth the confusion and contempt which our crimes have merited Beg of him the spirit and gift of Penance to the end taking part in the satisfactions of Christ Jesus you may endeavour in some measure by your self to satisfy God whom you have so often offended PRAYER MY Iesus give me light to discerne the weight of sinne the grace to detest it as it deserveth and love to become repentant as I ought for I intend Lord to doe Penance I know that you have suffered for me and that you died to give me life and to associate me to the number of your children And true it is that all that you have done was only to obtaine pardon for my offences and to satisfie for the paine due unto my crimes finally it is true Lord that your merits are infinite But yet it is likewise just and you give it me in command that I alter my course of life and doe Penance to sati fie your divine Justice for otherwise I cannot partake of the satisfaction of your Crosse nor of the merits of your sufferings Be pleased then to bestow on me the spirit of Penance and the zeale of your Justice that I may exercise it on my selfe But vouchsafe to give it me from this instant for feare lest I be surprized and excepting the houre of death and the day of vengeance I find my selfe unworthy of mercy I desire to prevent lest I be prevented It is a blessing which depends on you and which I beg of you with my whole heart Point III. COnsider the humiliation which Jesus hath borne in the thoughts and judgements of men who esteemed him strucken and reproved condemned and abandoned even of God himselfe judging him worthy of all the torments which he indured Render him thanks for supporting all this in satisfaction for the pride of men and from henceforth strive to affect humility and learn to despise the vaine judgements which may be made of you PRAYER ALl the sinnes of men O amiable Iesus are the cause of your death but pride which
is the mother of all sinnes is the principall occasion thereof For if you came into the world to ruine and annihilate the Kingdome of death and the empire of sinne much more did you come to combate the pomp of the world and to destroy the pride of men It was to this end you were borne and lived so poore and abject It was for this end that you died in the midst of so many confusions loaden with so many reproaches it was to condemne pride that your whole life your sufferings and death were onely in humiliations Since them O Lord you neither liv'd nor dy'd but to condemne pride which is the spring of all miseries I condemne it with you and detest it for your sake Be pleased to root out of my heart and to ingrave in my soule the love of humility And as in this mystery you abandon your selfe to the false judgments of men who esteem you worthy all the tortures which you indure so vouchsafe to give me the grace that for the combating my pride I may affect contempt despise the false judgments of men And for the completement of my blessing I beg of you that I may partake of the grace and spirit of your Passion and that you will be pleased to form in me your dispositions your actions and sufferings for I shall assuredly raigne with you if I become like unto you IESUS is nailed unto the Crosse Point I. PIlate abandoneth Jesus to the will and malice of sinners and Jesus himselfe became obedient in every thing even to the death of the Crosse He is delivered up to the Jewes and Gentiles to be nailed and fastned to this ignominious piece of wood in such sort as they shall ordaine Adore Jesus who satisfieth by his obedience for the disobedience of sinners and learne to love obedience and to preferre the will of God before all things of this world even before your owne life PRAYER O My Saviour and my God! I remaine not in this world but to fulfill your holy will all my happinesse depends on this point and the perfection of my soule consists in this vertue hitherto both Heaven Earth the Elements and all Creatures in obeying you teach me what I ought to doe But the death of my Iesus ô Eternall Father and his obedience in all the mysteries of his Passion evidenceth to me that I ought to preferre your holy will before my own contentments my private interest and even life it selfe that I must feare neither contempts nor sufferances nor even labours in all occasions which concerne that obedience which I owe your Soveraigne Majesty for if your Sonne hath abandoned himselfe to an ignominious death if he hath given his adorable feet and hands to be cruelly nailed unto a Crosse and if he subjected himselfe to the will of sinners and executioners what can I doe lesse from henceforward then learne of my Iesus the obedience which I owe to all that you require of me In honour then of the obedience of your Sonne and in homage to this vertue which he hath practised rendering himself obedient even to the death of the Crosse I give my selfe unto you O Father of mercy and acknowledge my selfe your Creature and Vassall and I purpose faithfully to obey you and to live under the lawes of your Empire Do not permit Lord if you please that I ever prove rebellious to you or that to fulfill my owne will I forsake yours but by an effect of the Mysterie which I contemplate grant that I preferre your holy will before all earthly things and even my owne life for such is my desire Point II. BEhold the submission wherein Jesus the King of glory vouchsafeth to place himselfe for our sinnes when as with a profound silence he submits to the Iudges to the Executioners and his Enemies And he even abandoneth himselfe to the power of Divels obeying so humbly and readily when they go about to uncloath him to naile and fasten him to the Crosse Subject your selfe for his sake as much as you may chiefly when there shall be occasion of being humbled or suffering any thing for the honour of God PRAYER GIve me the grace O God of love and goodnesse to know you and understand my selfe for if you impart unto me this light and affect me with a sense of this verity it will be easie for me to annihilate my selfe in the presence of your Soveraigne Majesty it will be no longer uneasie for me to condemne and confound my selfe considering the little love I beare you and it will be facile for me to suffer contempts humiliations and the Crosses of this present life For O benigne Iesus I see you all naked in the midst of most cruell Executioners stretched out upon this ignominious wood of the Crosse and if you who are the onely Son of my God have been pleased to endure for my sake the scourges the nailes and the Crosse why shall I refuse for the love of you the pains and contempts of this life No no Lord I detest my pride I accuse my remissenesse and renounce the delicacies and effeminacies of this world to the end I may imitate you and partake of the spirit grace and merits of your death and passion Point III. COnsider Jesus suffering in all things which may bring him pain humiliation and confusion to expiate the abuse we make of every thing which we imploy in offending the Divine Majesty and to condemne the inordinate love wherein we preferre the creature before the Creator Implore his grace to make good use of all things and take an aversion to the wantonnesse of the flesh PRAYER O Amiable Iesus you have created me to love you and have loved me to oblige me to your love nay all that you have done and suffered was but to draw me to you and to ingage me in your service I render you thanks with my whole heart and I beseech you to give me the grace that I may love you above all things and love nothing but your selfe in all things Be pleased to annihilate in me whatsoever is opposite to your love consume in my heart selfe-love and all affections to creatures to the end I may unite my selfe to you and live wholly for you I know very well that my crimes and offences have rendred me unworthy of this grace But O God of love and goodnesse you have suffered death on the Crosse to obtaine for us this grace and to attract us to your love Fix then if you please O benigne Iesus fix I say your love in my heart and your feare in my soule and grant that I may love you with all my power and with all my forces in order to your command Iesus upon the Crosse Point I. IEsus suffers in all the parts of his body who hath nothing whole from the feet to the head for he is covered all over with wounds bruised with blowes and his bloud quite exhausted He indures all these severall paines