Fasciculus Myrrhae: Of Gods Wonderful Mercy In Redeeming Us
BALDUNG GRIEN, Hans
Mater Dolorosa
c. 1516
THE II CHAPTER
Of Gods Wonderful Mercy In Redeeming Us
The Church In her devote office of Eaſter-Eve, calleth Adams sin, happy and necessary, which merited such, and so great a Redeemer: not by any dignity, or pleasantness of the fact it felt, hateful to Almighty God, and horribly punished, by him, in Adam himself, and his whole posterity after him: But by a congruous kind of compassion moving him, our most loving, and merciful Lord, rather then to condemn the whole race of mankind guilty of their first Parents transgression, to ordain such a wonderful means, & manner of redeeming us, as might increase his owns glory, confound our Adversary, and raise us more, then if we had still persevered in original grace, and never offended him.
For at the instant of mans fall, Love, and Wisdom combined themselves, to unite and accord in a wonderful manner, Mercy and Justice, our Creators two different attributes; so as Mercy afterwards was not more willing, to have mans pardon granted, then Injustice was ready to accept, more then a rigorous satisfaction, offered graciously for it.
Omnipotency gladly yielded, to effect all that, which should be needful, on Gods, and mans part, to make this required satisfaction; which could not be done, but by a person of equal dignity, with him, who had been so by mans fault, injured & offended.
This infinite worth, no pure Creature by any Created grace whatsoever, could arrive unto; but one of the divine Persons themselves, must necessarily, for this high purpose, assume to himself some created Nature (and mans most conveniently) personally making it his own, infinity thereby to increase the value of human actions and passions, and raise them so, as the utmost rigor of divine justice, might become satisfied by them, & more then Grace lost by sin become for us happily regained.
Majesty yielded to be thus humbled, & invested with the servile form of our nature, & to assume all such infirmities and defects thereof, as involved not sin, and were apt to become satisfactory for us.
Goodness delighted to effuse it self to the utmost in this wonderful work.
And Bounty added infinitely more, then was rigorously needful to redeem us.
The Eternal Word among the divine Persons undertook this high work, as chiefly belonging to himself (saith S. Bernard) the bright splendor, and subsisting Image of his Eternal Father, to repair the likeness of himself, and the other Divine persons in mans nature, miserably by sin obscured and defaced.
I will (said he) O Eternal Father, descend into the earth, to make earthly rules there become heavenly: and by assuming their nature, vilified now and debased by sin, into the Majesty of my own Person, I will deify in a sort, and infinitely dignity the Same more, then it it had never been disgraced.
And by how much the more craftily & cruelly, their infernal Adversary, emulating their good, and thy glory, hath sought to draw, & separate them from thee: by so much the more nearly, will I unite them to my self, by making their nature, enriched with wonderful graces the Crown as it were of my self, and glory of all Creatures; a fountain of grace, rising in myself; the boundless Ocean of all goodness; a most precious Pearl, set in the Orb of my own majesty and greatness; a Tree of life planted in no other soil, then my own person; the true Paradise and joyful! mansion of all blessed Creatures.
The Eternal Father graciously assented to his Sons motion, of showing mercy to mankind, and loved the world so, as to give him to redeem it.
Who in the over greatness of his love of graciouſly resolved, to free us by his own captivity; enrich us by his poverty, ease us by his sufferings , cure is by his wounds cleanse us by his blood, revive us by his death, and by his own humiliations and disgraces, eternally to honor and highly exalt us.
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