Oh, my only Lord, thy grief was the greatest that
ever was in man, and my grief as great as ever hap-
pened to woman ; for my love has imparted to me no
small portion of thine own, thy loss has redoubled the
torment of my own, and all creatures seem to have
made over theirs to me, leaving me as the vicegerent
of all their sorrows. - Sorrow with me, at the least,
thou tomb ! and thaw into tears, ye hardest stones ! -
The time is come, that ye are licensed to cry aloud,
and bound to atone for the silence of your Lord s dis-
ciples, of whom he himself said to the Pharisees, that
if they held their peace, the very stones should cry out
for them. - Yes, since fear hath sealed up every lip, and
madness made mute every tongue, let the stones cry
out against the murderers of my Lord, and betray the
robbers of his sacred body. It was doubtless the spite
of some malicious Pharisee, or ill -minded Scribe, who,
not content with those torments he suflfered in life, of
which every one, to any other, would have been worse
than death, hath now stolen away his dead body, to
practise upon it some savage cruelty, and to glut their
pitiless eyes and brutish hearts with the unnatural
usage of his helpless corse.
Doth not his tongue, whose truth is infallible and
whose word omnipotent, commanding both the winds
and the seas, and never disobeyed by the most insensible
creature - doth it not promise to arm the world, and
make the whole earth fight against the senseless in de-
fence of the just ? And who more just than the Lord of
justice ? Who more senseless than his barbarous mur-
derers, whose insatiable thirst of his innocent blood
could not be staunched with their cruelly butchering
him at his death, unless they proceeded further in this
brutal impiety to his dead body ? Why, then, do not
all creatures address themselves to revenge so just a
quarrel upon such senseless wretches, bereft of all rea-
son, forsaken by humanity, and destitute of all feeling
both toward God and man
Oh, Mary, why dost thou thus torment thyself with
these tragical surmises? Dost thou think that the
angels would sit still, if their master were ill-used?
Did they serve him after his fasting in the desert, and
would they desert him in the solitude of the tomb ?
Did they comfort him before his apprehension, and
would they not defend him when he was dead ? If in
the garden he might have had twelve legions at his
call, has his power too so died with his body, that he
is now unable to command them ? Was there an an-
gel found to help Daniel, to save Tobias, yea, and to
defend Balaam's poor beast from his master's rage ;
and is the Lord of Angels of so little account, that, if
his body stood in need, there should be never an angel
to defend it ? Thou seest two here present to honour
bis tomb, and how much more careful would they be,
to do homage to his person ? Believe not, Mary, that
they would smile, if thou hadst such occasion to weep.
They would not so gloriously shine in white, if black
and mourning weeds did better become them. Yield
not greater credit to thy uncertain fear and deceived
love, than to their assured love and never-erring cha-
rity. Can a material eye see more than a heavenly
spirit ; or the glimmering of the twilight yield better
vision than the beams of their eternal sun ? Thinkest
thou they would wait by the winding-sheet, if the
corse were abused ; or be here for thy comfort, if
their Lord did need their service ? No, no - he was
neither any thief's booty, nor Pharisee's prey ; neither
are the angels so careless of him as thy suspicion
presumeth. And if their presence and demeanour
eannot alter thy conceit, look upon the clothes, and
they will teach thee thine error, and clear thee of thy
doubts. Would any thief, thinkest thou, have been
so religious as to have stolen the body, and left the
garments ? Yea, would he have been so venturous as
to have stayed the unshrouding of the corse, the well-
ordering of the sheets, and folding up of the napkins ?
A guilty conscience doubteth want of time, and there-
fore dispatcheth hastily. It is in hazard to be disco-
vered, and therefore practiseth in darkness and secrecy.
It ever worketh in extreme fear, and therefore hath no
leisure to place things orderly. What did the watch,
while the seals were broken, the tomb opened, the body
unfolded, and all things disposed in older ? But if all
this cannot yet persuade thee, believe, at least, thine
own experience, and assure thyself, that if the corse
has been removed either by malice or fraud, the lines
and myrrh would never have been left ; and neither
would the angels look so cheerfully, nor the clothes
lie so orderly, but to import some happier accident
than thou conceivest.
To free thee still more from fear, consider these
words of the angels - Woman, why weepest thou? - for
what do they signify but as much, in effect, as if they
had said - " Where angels rejoice, it befitteth not that
a woman should weep ; and where heavenly eyes are
witnesses of joy, no mortal eye should control them
with testimonies of sorrow. With more than manly
courage, thou didst, before our coming, aim thy feet
to run among swords, and thy body to endure all ty-
rants' rage and art thou now so much a woman, that
thou canst not command thine eyes to forbear tears ?
If thou wert a true disciple, so many proofs would per-
suade thee but now thy incredulous humour maketh
thee unworthy of that title, and we can afford thee no
better a name than that of woman and therefore. Oh,
woman, why weepest thou ? — Jf there were here any
corse, we might think that sorrow for the dead en-
forced thy tears ; but now that thou findest it a place
of the living, why dost thou stand here weeping for
the dead ? Is our presence so uncomfortable, that thou
shouldst weep to behold us ? or is this the course of thy
kindness to entertain us ? If they be tears of love, to
testify thy good will, as thy love is acknowledged, so
let these signs be suppressed. If they be tears of anger,
to denounce thy displeasure, they should not here have
been shed, where all anger was buried, but none de-
served. If they be tears of sorrow and duty, they are
bestowed in vain here, where the dead alone are re-
ceived. If they be tears of joy, distilled from the
flowers of thy good fortune, fewer of these would suf-
fice, and fitter were other tokens to express thy con-
tentment. And therefore. Oh, woman, why weepest
thou ? Would our eyes be so diy, if such eye-streams
weie beho\eful ? Yea, would not the heavens rain
tears, if thy suppositions were truths ? Do not
the angels, in their visible semblances, always repre-
ent the Lord's invisible pleasures, shadowing their
shapes to the drift of his intentions ? When God was
incensed, they brandished swords ; when he was ap-
peased, they sheathed them in the scabbard when he
would defend, they resembled soldiers ; when he would
terrify, they took terrible forms ; when he would
comfort, they carried gladness in their eyes, sweetness
in their countenances, mildness in their words, favour,
graced and comeliness in their whole presence. Why,
then, dost thou weep, seeing us to rejoice ? Dost thou
imagine us to degenerate from our nature, or to for-
get any duty, whose state is neither subject to change,
nor capable of the least offence ? Art thou more privy
to the counsels of the Eternal, than we that are daily
attendants at his throne of glory ? Oh, woman ! deem
not amiss against an evidence so apparent, and, at our
request, exchange thy sorrow for our joy."
But oh, glorious angels, why do ye move her to joy,
if ye know why she weepeth ? Alas ! she weepeth for
the loss of him, without whom all joy is to her but
matter of new grief. While he lived, everyplace where
she found him was to her a paradise ; every season
wherein he was enjoyed, a perpetual spring ; every
exercise wherein he was served, a special felicity : the
ground whereon he went, seemed to yield her sweeter
footing ; the air wherein he breathed, became to her a
spirit of life, being once sanctified in his sacred breast.
In a word, his presence brought with it a heaven of
delights, and his departure seemed to leave an eclipse in
all things ; nay, more, even the places that he had once
honoured with the access of his person were to her so
many sweet pilgrimages, which in his absence she used
as so many altars to offer up her prayers, feeling in
them, long after his departure, the virtue of his former
presence : and therefore, to feed her with conjectures
of his well-being, is but to strengthen her fear that
evil has befallen him ; and the alledging of likelihoods
by those that know the certainty, importeth the cause
to be so lamentable, that they are unwilling it should
be known. Your obscure glancing at the truth is no
sufficient acquittance of her grief ; neither can she, out
of these disjoined guesses, spell the words that must be
the conclusion of her complaint. Tell her, then, di-
rectly, what is become of her Lord, if you mean to de-
liver her out of this anguish ; for whatever else you
say of him doth but rather increase her grief than as-
suage it.
Yet hearken, O Mary, and consider their speeches.
Think what answer thou wilt give them, since they
press thee with so strong a persuasion. But I doubt
thy mind is bewildered - thou art wholly absorbed in
the bloody tragedy of thy slaughtered Lord : his death
and loss have gained such absolute possession over all
thy powers, that neither can thy sense discern, 'nor thy
mind conceive, any other object than his murdered
corse. Thy eyes seem to tell thee that every thing in-
viteth thee to weep ; carrying such outward show, as
though all that thou seest were attired in sorrow, to
solemnise, with general consent, the funeral of thy
Master. Thy tears persuade thee that all sounds and
voices are tuned with mournful notes ; that the echo
of thine own wailings is the cry of the very stones and
trees and that as the cause of thy tears is so unusual,
into the very rocks and woods God had inspired a feel-
ing of thine and their common loss. And therefore it
soundeth to thee as a strange question - Why thou
weepest - since all that thou seest and hearest seemeth
to induce thee, yea, to enforce thee to weep. If thou
seest any thing that beareth colour of mirth, it is unto
thee like the rich spoils of a vanquished kingdom to
the eye of a captive prince, which remind him of
what he had, not what he hath ; and which are but
the upbraidings of his loss, and the occasion of
sharper sorrow.
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