A Form of Prayer recording all the parts and mysteries of Christs Passion, being a short history of it: to be used especially in the week of the Passions, and before the receiving the blessed Sacrament.

All praise, honour, and glory be to the holy and eternal Jesus. I adore thee, O blessed Redeemer, eternal God, the light of the Gentiles, and the glory of Israel; for thou hast done and suffered for me more than I could wish; more than I could thing of; even all that a lost and a miserable perishing sinner could possibly need.

Thou wert afflicted with thirst and hunger, with heat and cold, with labours and sorrows, with hard journeys and restless nights; and when thou wert contriving all the mysterious and admirable ways of paying our scores, thou didst suffer thyself to he designed to slaughter by those for whom in love thou wert ready to die.

“What is man, that thou art mindful of him; and the Son of man, that thou visited him?”

Blessed be thy name, O holy Jesus; for thou wentest about doing good, working miracles of mercy, healing the sick, comforting the distressed, instructing the ignorant, raising the dead, enlightening the blind, strengthening the lame, straightening the crooked, relieving the poor, preaching the gospel, and reconciling sinners by the mightiness of thy power, by the wisdom of thy Spirit, by the word of God, and the merits of thy passion, thy healthful and bitter passion.

“Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him,” etc.

Blessed by thy name, O holy Jesus, who wert content to be conspired against by the Jews, to be sold by thy servant for a vile price, and to wash the feet of him that took money for thy life, and to give to him and to all thy apostles thy most holy body and blood, to become a sacrifice for their sins, even for their betraying and denying thee; and for all my sins, even for my crucifying thee afresh, and for such sins, which I am ashamed to think, but that the greatest of my sins magnify the infiniteness of thy mercies, who didst so great things for so vile a person.

“Lord, what is man,”etc.

Blessed be thy name, O holy Jesus, who, being to depart the world, didst comfort thy apostles, pouring out into their ears and hearts treasures of admirable discourses; who didst recommend them to thy Father with a mighty charity, and then didst enter into the garden set with nothing but briars and sorrows, where thou didst suffer a most unspeakable agony, until the sweat didst sigh and groan, and fall flat upon the earth, and pray, and I had deserved, and thou sufferest.

“Lord, what is man,” etc.

Blessed be thy name, O holy Jesus, who hast sanctified to us all our natural infirmities and passions, by vouchsafing to be in fear and in trembling and sore amazement, by being bound and imprisoned, by being harassed and dragged with cords of violence and rude hands, by being drenched in the brook in the way, by being sought after like a thief, and used like a sinner who wert the most holy and the most innocent, cleaner than an angel and brighter than the morning star.

“Lord, what is man,” etc.

Blessed by thy name, O holy Jesus, and blessed by thy loving kindness and pity, by which thou didst neglect thine own sorrows, and go to comfort the sadness of thy disciples, quickening their dulness, encouraging their duty, arming their weakness with excellent precepts against the day of trial. Blessed be that humility, encouraging their duty, arming their weakness with excellent precepts against the day of trial. Blessed be that humility and sorrow of thine, who, being Lord of the angels, yet wouldest need and receive comfort from thy servant, the angel; who didst offer thyself to thy persecutors, and madest them able to seize thee; and didst receive the traitor’s kiss, and sufferedst a veil to be thrown over thy holy face, that thy enemies might not presently be confounded by so bright a lustre; and wouldst do a miracle to cure a wound of one of thy spiteful enemies; and didst reprove a zealous servant in behalf of a malicious adversary; and then didst go like a lamb to the slaughter, without noise or violence or resistance, when thou couldst have commanded millions of angels for thy guard and rescue.

“Lord, what is man,” etc.

Blessed be thy name, O holy Jesus, and blessed be that holy sorrow thou didst suffer, when thy disciples fled, and thou wert left alone in the hands of cruel men, who, like evening wolves, thirsted for a draught of thy best blood, and thou wert led to the house of Annas, and there asked ensnaring questions, and smitten on the face by him whose ear thou hadst but lately healed; and from thence wert fragged to the house of Caiaphas; and there all night didst endure spittings, affronts, scorn, contumelies, blows, and intolerable insolences; and all this for man, who was thy enemy, and the cause of all thy sorrows.

“Lord, what is man,” etc.

Blessed be thy name, O holy Jesus, and blessed be thy mercy, who, when thy servant Peter denied thee and forsook thee and forswore thee, didst look back upon him, and by that gracious and chiding look didst call him back to himself and thee; who wert accused before the high-priest and railed upon, and examined to evil purposes, and with designs of blood; who wert declared guilty of death for speaking a most necessary and most probable truth; who wert sent to Pilate and found innocent, and sent to Herod and still found innocent, and wert arrayed in white, both to declare thy innocence and yet to deride thy person, and wert sent back to Pilate, and examined again, and yet nothing but innocence found in thee, and malice round about thee to devour faith, which yet thou wert more desirous to lay down for them than they were to take it from thee.

“Lord, what is man,” etc.

Blessed be thy name, O holy Jesus, and blessed be that patience and charity, by which for our sakes thou wert content to be smitten with canes, and have that holy face, which angels with joy and wonder do behold, be spit upon, and be despised, when compared with Barabbas, and scourged most rudely with unhallowed hands, till the pavement was purpled with that holy blood, and condemned to a sad and shameful, a public and painful death, and arrayed in scarlet, and crowned with thorns, and stripped naked and then clothed, and loaden with the cross, and tormented with a tablet stuck with nails at the fringes of thy garment, and bound hard with cords, and dragged most vilely and most piteously, till the load was too great, and did sink thy tender and virginal body to the earth; and yet didst comfort the weeping women, and didst more pity thy persecutors than thyself, and wert grieved for the miseries of Jerusalem to come forty years after, more than for thy present passion.

“Lord, what is man,” etc.

Blessed be thy name, O holy Jesus, and blessed be that incomparable sweetness and holy sorrow which thou sufferedst, when thy holy hands and feet were nailed upon the cross, and the cross, being set in a hollowness of the earth, did in the fall rend the wounds wider, and there, naked and bleeding, sick and faint, wounded and despised, didst hang upon the weight of thy wounds three long hours, praying for thy persecutors, satisfying thy Father’s wrath, reconciling the penitent thief, providing for thy holy and afflicted mother, tasting vinegar and gall; and when the fulness of thy suffering was accomplished, didst give thy soul into the hands of God, and didst descent to the regions of longing souls, who waited for the revelation of this thy day in their prisons of hope: and then thy body was transfixed with a spear, and issued forth two sacraments, water and blood, and thy body was composed to burial, and dwelt in darkness three days, and three nights.

“Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that thou thus visited him?”