Fourth Sunday After Easter GOSPEL John 16. 5-14 The Monday Meditation: A Plaine Path-Way To Heaven By Fr.Thomas Hill 1634

GOSPEL John 16. 5-14. 

At that time Jesus said to His disciples: I go to Him that sent Me: and none of you asketh Me: Whither goest Thou? But because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow hath filled your heart. But I tell you the truth: it is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you: but if I go, I will send Him to you. And when He is come, He will convince the world of sin, and of justice and of judgment. Of sin, because they believed not in Me: and of justice, because I go to the Father, and you shall see Me no longer: and of judgment, because the prince of this world is already judged. I have yet many things to say to you; but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all truth. For He shall not speak of Himself: but what things soever He shall hear He shall speak, and the things that are to come, He shall show you. He shall glorify Me: because He shall receive of Mine and shall show it to you.

MONDAY

Christ said unto his disciples, I am to be baptized with a Baptism, and how do I long to have it done.  He meant his death,and passion, but would not name it so in plain terms, but rather a baptism, partly because the disciples should not plainly understand him and be constrained at it till the time came, but chiefly to show his ardent thirst & desire thereof for the redemption of mankind, as a thing no less pleasant unto him then for men to bath themselves in water, when they are over hot in Summer.

In so much that when Judas went about to betray him, he bid him do what he did quickly as though he could not brook delay. Go ye forth saith Solomon speaking unto Christians of Christ, O ye daughters of Sion & see Solomon your king in his Diadem or crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousal, in the day of the joy of his heart, meaning  of his death, and passion, where he espoused himself unto our souls,whereof he took a great deal more joy, and delight, then any fervent lover taketh when he is first espoused to his spouse: and the Prophet David making a Psalm of the cruel death and passion of Christ and of his torments & reproaches intuit it (of the morning susception) that is to say, of those things which Christ suffered for us in the morning, alluding unto one that having some earnest business to do, wherein he much delighteth, though it be not to be done till noon, he cannot sleep but riseth up very early about it in the morning before day: so Christ having a day appointed by his Father to be borne into the world, and to work or redemption, it had sufficed for him to be born any time of day, &most for his ease at noon, but he would be born at midnight, as soon as ever the day begone, that he might begin to suffer as soon as he could: he began his passion day likewise at midnight: and here he sayeth of his bitter and cruel death, & torments, I go unto him that sent me, that is to say, I go unto my death and torments of myself, not by compulsion, but of mine own accord,and desire,and I go so willingly and with such delight that I rather run then go: Yea I fell out with my disciple Peter for hindering me in my course, I rebuked him, and called him Satan.

Oh the unspeakable, and almost incredible love of Christ towards us. And shall not we direct all our actions, words,and thoughts to him and his honor and glory every day from morning to night? Shall not we do (as the Prophet David saith he did) not only walk, but run in the ways of his commandments?

On that we could say not only of the Service of God, but of our death, if it be for Christ, as Christ said here for us;  I go to my heavenly Father, and therefore I go willingly, and of my own accord, nay with great deal of joy, and delight.