ed men say that Christ, albeit that he was true God, and
as God was in eternal equal bliss with his Father, yet as man
merited not only for us but for himself too. For proof of this they
lay in these words the authority of St. Paul: "Christ hath humbled
himself, and became obedient unto the death, and that unto the
death of the cross; for which thing God hath also exalted him and
given him a name which is above all names, that in the name of
Jesus every knee be bowed, both of the celestial creatures and of
the terrestrial and of the infernal too, and that every tongue
shall confess that our lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God his
Father." Now if it be so as these great learned men say, upon such
authorities of holy scripture, that our Saviour merited as man, and
as man deserved reward not for us only but for himself also; then
were there in his deeds, it seemeth, sundry degrees and differences
of deserving. His washing of the disciples' feet was not, then, of
like merit as his passion, nor his sleep of like merit as his vigil
and his prayer--no, nor his prayers peradventure all of like merit,
either. But though there was not, nor could be, in his most blessed
person any prayer but was excellent and incomparably surpassing the
prayer of any mere creature, yet his own were not all alike, but
one far above another. And then if it thus be, of all his holy
prayers, the chief seemeth me those that he made in his great agony
and pain of his bitter passion. The first was when he thrice fell
prostrate in his agony, when the heaviness of his heart with fear
of death at hand, so painful and so cruel as he well beheld it,
made such a fervent commotion in his blessed body that the bloody
sweat of his holy flesh dropped down on the ground. The others were
the painful prayers that he made upon the cross, where, for all the
torment that he hanged in--of beating, nailing, and stretching out
all his limbs, with the wresting of his sinews and breaking of his
tender veins, and the sharp crown of thorns so pricking him into
the head that his blessed blood streamed down all his face--in all
these hideous pains, in all their cruel despites, yet two very
devout and fervent prayers he made. One was for the pardon of those
who so dispiteously put him to his pain, and the other about his
own deliverance, commending his own soul to his holy Father in
heaven. These prayers of his, made in his most pain, among all that
ever he made, reckon I fo