ears which are so wilfully deaf. Wherefore let us sinners turn again and remember ourselves, how full of folly and of blindness we are; and take diligent heed and perceive how lovingly God speaks to us, in the Psalms and Canticles and through all Scripture, and we to him. Yet when we say the Response, the Collect, the Chapter, the Psalm, or the Antiphon, we pass it over ofttimes without affection or regard for the meaning contained in it, but hasten through it and pause not thereon, so it be said and past; whereby, of a truth, we do great injury and folly to God, when we thus desire him to hear us in our need and adversity. And though we ourselves do not bid him to do the contrary, saying, "Hear us not," yet we often do that which is even worse; when we revolve and lay in his sight abominable and polluted things and unprofitable. For the heart of man is the most unstable of all things, and never abides stedfast, or constant and immoveable; but is distracted and drawn in by infinite ways and devices. And when it seeks rest it finds none; it makes, it mars; it edifies, it destroys; it repines, it sorrows; and thus, as Job says, it never continues in one stay. Wherefore it were expedient for us all to expel and put to silence all vain fancies, imaginations, and thoughts, when we prepare ourselves for prayer and for chanting of Psalms or Hymns; and with a firm mind utterly to drive forth our most blind enemy vain-glory, which withdraws us

from great virtue and grace, and nourishes our souls in the bitterness of death. Thus, like strong men, with pure mind and with earnest attention, let us give our hearts all holy in prayer to God, with lowly devotion and humility, even as the penitent king and prophet David gave his whole heart to God when he sang so sweetly in the Psalms, Let my prayer be set forth in thy sight as the incense: and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice. Let us, then, with pure devotion pray him to confound the malice and subtilty of the devil, that we may win the fruit of our petition in short time; even the fruition of God's infinite love in the everlasting joy of his Presence; unto which may the grace of Christ through his painful Passion bring us at our departure. Amen.

FIRS

EARNEST PRAYER PENETRATES HEAVEN. IRST, when you prepare for prayer or devotion, which is stirred by the Holy Ghost, retire, if you can, to a quiet place, as far as may be from any noise, or else sequester your mind from all worldly things. There kneel, sit, or stand, as your mind shall lead you. Then be you lord or lady, of low or of high degree, wealthy or poor, call to remembrance how vile you are of yourself, and that you have a God who created you of nothing, who has made you a reasonable creature, and given you right form and substance, and has fashioned you to his own image and similitude; and how he has

wrought for you to this hour, giving you many worldly gifts which others lack. For you may daily see by experience how many lie in great misery, penury, and distress; whereas, as the Apostle says, you have of yourself nothing good but what you have received from God, neither have you anything of the seed of Adam but only sin.

Think also how sinful you are, and what life you have led in your youth, whereof you have never repented. And when you look back on all these things, with heart weighed down by shame and sorrow, it is likely that, were it not for the preservation of God, you would fall into yet more sin through your own misery. Thus you may think truly that, of yourself, there is none more sinful than you. And if you have any virtue or grace of good knowledge or living, think in very deed that it comes only of the goodness of God, and not at all of yourself. Meditate also in your mind how long and how often God has suffered your wilfulness to remain and continue in sin. Thus of his goodness and mercy he has spared you, and would not take you in the state of damnation when you had surely deserved it, but gently bore with you till you had left your sin. And so he gave you grace to leave your sin and to come to goodness; for of his gentle mercy he is loth to lose one of his flock, which he bought with his most precious Blood and most violent pains. Think also that he, of his incomparable mercy and goodness, left

his glorious and infinite kingdom of heaven, and descended from the Father to take on him human nature, and to be born of a pure virgin, because he would not lose you. He bore great poverty, pains, and injuries, all his life. He suffered as a human creature. And further, he suffered unto death. What death? The death which was most shameful of all: to hang on the Cross nailed with four nails. This did he suffer, of his own infinite goodness and mercy, to save you from the damnation which you deserved through your sinful living. Thus may you with meek spirit meditate in your heart the bountiful gifts of grace, which our loving Lord and Redeemer has done, and does daily, for you, a miserable and unkind sinner. Wherefore behold with your inward spiritual eye, and with sorrowful heart, what incomparable pains he suffered meekly in this painful Passion for us sinners. You may in your mind conceive, and in your soul or spirit imagine and see inwardly, as though you had been present at his Passion, all the acts whereby the Redemption of mankind was won.

You

may remember how he was betrayed, being most innocent, and taken and brought before a judge, with many and painful injuries then done to him. When he was wrongfully accused by false witnesses, he withstood them not, but meekly suffered. Their fierce desire thirsted for his death, but first to put him to fearful pain.

Behold now, and think in your heart,

how he was bound naked to a pillar; there Scourged so piteously that, from the sole of his foot to the highest part of his head, there was not one place but the skin and flesh were broken, and rent, and bloody, for our sakes and love. Think how dreadful to the friends and disciples of Christ, and espe cially to his Blessed Mother, and to the holy women who stood by the Cross, must this cruel treatment of their dear Lord and Saviour have been, as they saw him led to the slaughter, as a lamb dumb before her shearers. Now turn from them and behold stedfastly your Lord, how busy his enemies were to put him to extreme pain; binding on his head a wreath of sharp thorns fastened like a crown, in contempt of his being named a King; which caused the blood to run into his ears, eyes, nose, and mouth, pitiful to behold. See them also kneeling scornfully, and in rising again spit on his glorious face. All this he suffered meekly for our Redemption. Yet of their cruelty they left him not thus. Still more must he endure ere the sacrifice is complete.

And now remember in your mind, and behold with your inward eye, how they dragged and spurned his precious Body laden with a cross through the streets and without the gates to the Mount of Calvary; where, without shame or pity, they nailed it all naked to the cross, as though he had been an open thief, and then with ropes they stretched him on the cross, so that his