so no saint could be happier. O Saviour, what a precedent is this of thy free and powerful grace! where thou wilt give, what unworthiness can bar us from mercy? when thou wilt give, what time can prejudice our vocation? who can despair of thy goodness, when he, that in the morning was posting towards hell, is in the evening with thee in Paradise? Lord, he could not have spoken this to thee, but by thee, and from thee. What possibility was there for a thief to think of thy kingdom, without thy Spirit? that good Spirit of thine breathed upon this man, breathed not upon his fellow; their trade was alike, their sin was alike, their state alike, their cross alike, only thy mercy makes them unlike: one is taken, the other is refused. Blessed be thy mercy in taking one: blessed be thy justice in leaving the other. Who can despair of that mercy? who can but tremble at that justice?

Now, O ye cruel priests and elders of the Jews, ye have full leisure to feed your eyes with the sight ye so much longed for: there is the blood ye purchased, and is not your malice yet glutted? is not all this enough, without your taunts, and scoffs, and sports, at so exquisite a misery? The people, the passengers are taught to insult, where they should pity. Every man hath a scorn ready to cast at a dying innocent. A generous nature is more wounded with the tongue than with the hand. O Saviour, thine ear was more painfully pierced than thy brows, or hands, or feet. It could not but go deep into thy soul, to hear these bitter and girding reproaches from them thou camest to save.

But, alas! what flea-bitings were these, in comparison of those inward torments which thy soul felt in the sense and apprehension of thy Father's wrath, for the sins of the whole world, which now lay heavy upon thee for satisfaction! This, O this was it that pressed thy soul, as it were, to the nethermost hell. While thine eternal Father looked lovingly upon thee, what didst thou, what needst thou to care for the frowns of men or devils? but when he once turned his face from thee, or bent his brows upon thee, this, this was worse than death. It is no marvel now, if darkness were upon the face of the whole earth, when thy Father's face was eclipsed from thec by the interposition of our sins. How should there be light in the world without, when the God of the world, the Father of lights, complains of the want of light within? That word of thine, O Saviour, was enough to fetch the sun

down out of heaven, and to dissolve the whole frame of nature, when thou criedst, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" O what pangs were these, dear Jesu, that drew from thee this complaint! Thou well knewst, nothing could be more cordial to thine enemies, than to hear this sad language from thee: they could see but the outside of thy sufferings; never could they have conceived so deep an anguish of thy soul, if thy own lips had not expressed it. Yet, as not regarding their triumph, thou thus pourest out thy sorrow; and, when so much is uttered, who can conceive what is felt?

How is it then with thee, O Saviour, that thou thus astonishest men and angels with so woeful a quiritation? Had thy God left thee? Thou not long since saidst, “I and my Father are one;" are ye now severed? Let this thought be as far from my soul, as my soul from hell. No more can thy blessed Father be separated from thee, than from his own essence. His union with thee is eternal; his vision was intercepted: he could not withdraw his presence, he would withdraw the influence of his comfort. Thou, the second Adam, stoodst for mankind upon this tree of the cross, as the first Adam stood and fell for mankind upon the tree of offence. Thou barest our sins; thy Father saw us in thee, and would punish us in thee, thee for us: how could he but withhold comfort, where he intended chastisement? Herein therefore he seems to forsake thee for the present, in that he would not deliver thee from that bitter passion which thou wouldst undergo for us. O Saviour, hadst thou not been thus forsaken, we had perished; thy dereliction is our safety; and, however our narrow souls are not capable of the conceit of thy pain and horror, yet we know there can be no danger in the forsaking, while thou canst say, "My God." He is so thy God, as he cannot be ours; all our right is by adoption, his by nature: thou art one with him in eternal essence, we come in by grace and merciful election: yet, while thou shalt enable me to say, "My God," I shall hope never to sink under thy desertions.

But, while I am transported with the sense of thy sufferings, O Saviour, let me not forget to admire those sweet mercies of thine which thou pouredst out upon thy persecutors. They rejoice in thy death, and triumph in thy misery, and scoff at thee in both. Instead of calling down fire from

heaven upon them, thou heapest coals of fire upon their heads; "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." They blaspheme thee, thou prayest for them; they scorn, thou pitiest; they sin against thee, thou prayest for their forgiveness; they profess their malice, thou pleadst their ignorance. O compassion without example, without measure, fit for the Son of God, the Saviour of men! wicked and foolish Jews! ye would be miserable, he will not let you; ye would fain pull upon yourselves the guilt of his blood, he deprecates it; ye kill, he sues for your remission and life. His tongue cries louder than his blood, "Father, forgive them." O Saviour, thou couldst not but be heard. Those, who out of ignorance and simplicity thus persecuted thee, find the happy issue of thine intercession. Now I see whence it was, that three thousand souls were converted soon after, at one sermon. It was not Peter's speech, it was thy prayer, that was thus effectual. Now they have grace to know and confess whence they have both forgiveness and salvation, and can recompense their blasphemies with thanksgiving. What sin is there, Lord, whereof I can despair of the remission? or what offence can I be unwilling to remit, when thou prayest for the forgiveness of thy murderers and blasphemers?

There is no day so long but hath his evening. At last, O blessed Saviour, thou art drawing to an end of these painful sufferings; when spent with toil and torment, thou criest out, "I thirst." How shouldst thou do other, O dear Jesu, how shouldst thou do other than thirst? The night thou hast spent in watching, in prayer, in agony, in thy conveyance from the garden to Jerusalem, from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate; in thy restless answers, in buffettings and stripes the day in arraignments, in hailing from place to place, in scourgings, in stripping, in robing, and disrobing, in bleeding, in tugging under thy cross, in woundings and distension, in pain and passion: no marvel if thou thirstedst. Although there was more. in this drought than thy need; it was no less requisite thou shouldst thirst, than that thou shouldst die both were upon the same predetermination, both upon the same prediction. How else should that word be verified, (Psal. xxii. 14, 15,) "All my bones are out of joint, my heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my

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tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death?" Had it not been to make up that word whereof one jot cannot pass, though thou hadst felt this thirst, yet thou hadst not bewrayed it. Alas! what could it avail to bemoan thy wants to insulting enemies, whose sport was thy misery? how should they pity thy thirst, that pitied not thy bloodshed? It was not their favour that thou expectedst herein, but their conviction. O Saviour, how can we, thy sinful servants, think much to be exercised with hunger and thirst, when we hear thee thus complain?

Thou that not long since proclaimedst in the temple, "If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink: He that believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters," now thyself thirstest. Thou, in whom we believe, complainest to want some drops; thou hadst the command of all the waters, both above the firmament and below it, yet thou wouldst thirst. Even so, Lord, thou, that wouldst die for us, wouldst thirst for us. O give me to thirst after those waters which thou promisest, whatever become of those waters which thou wouldst want. The time was, when, craving water of the Samaritan, thou givest better than that thou askedst. O give me to thirst after that more precious water; and so do thou give me of that water of life, that I may never thirst again.

Blessed God, how marvellously dost thou contrive thine own affairs! thine enemies, while they would despite thee, shall unwittingly justify thee, and convince themselves. As thou foresaidst," In thy thirst, they gave thee vinegar to drink." Had they given thee wine, thou hadst not taken it; the night before thou hadst taken leave of that comfortable liquor, resolving to drink no more of that sweet juice, till thou shouldst drink it new with them in thy Father's kingdom. Had they given thee water, they had not fulfilled that prediction, whereby they were self-condemned. I know not now, O dear Jesu, whether this last draught of thine were more pleasing to thee, or more distasteful: distasteful in itself, for what liquor could be equally harsh; pleasing, in that it made up those sufferings thou wert to endure, and those prophecies thou wert to fulfil.

Now there is no more to do; thy full consummation of all predictions, of all types and ceremonies, of all sufferings, of all satisfactions, is happily both effected and proclaimed: nothing

now remains but a voluntary, sweet, and heavenly resignation of thy blessed soul into the hands of thine eternal Father, and a bowing of tuine head for the change of a better crown, and a peaceable obdormition in thy bed of ease and honour, and an instant entrance into rest, triumph, glory.

And now, O blessed Jesu, how easily have carnal eyes all this while mistaken the passages and intentions of this thy last and most glorious work! Our weakness could hitherto see nothing here but pain and ignominy; now, my better enlightened eyes see, in this elevation of thine, both honour and happiness. Lo, thou that art the Mediator betwixt God and man, the Reconciler of heaven and earth, art lift up betwixt earth and heaven, that thou mightst accord both. Thou, that art the great Captain of our salvation, the Conqueror of all the adverse powers of death and hell, art exalted upon this triumphal chariot of the cross, that thou mightst trample upon death, and drag all those infernal principalities manacled after thee. Those arms, which thine enemies meant violently to extend, are stretched forth for the embracing of all mankind that shall come in, for the benefit of thine all-sufficient redemption. Even while thou sufferest, thou reignest. O the impotent madness of silly men! they think to disgrace thee with wry faces, with tongues put out, with bitter scoffs, with poor wretched indignities; when, in the mean time, the heavens declare thy righteousness, O Lord, and the earth shews forth thy power. The sun pulls in his light, as not abiding to see the sufferings of his Creator; the earth trembles under the sense of the wrong done to her Maker; the rocks rend, the veil of the temple tears from the top to the bottom: shortly, all the frame of the world acknowledges the dominion of that Son of God, whom men despiseth.

Earth and hell have done their worst. O Saviour, thou art in thy Paradise, and triumphest over the malice of men and devils; the remainders of thy sacred person are not yet free. The soldiers have parted thy garments, and cast lots upon thy seamless coat: those poor spoils cannot so much enrich them as glorify thee, whose scriptures are fulfilled by their barbarous sortitions. The Jews sue to have thy bones divided, but they sue in vain. No more could thy garments be whole than thy body could be broken. One inviolable decree overrules both. Foolish executioners! Foolish executioners! ye look up at that crucified body, as if it were altogether in your power and