Meditations on the fall and rising of St. Peter

MED. XXIX.

WE find not that Peter after this, saw Christ till his Resurrection: And then none so particularly invited unto his sight, none so forward and hasty to have recourse unto the Garden. Was it grief at his Master's misery, or at his own sin (with the lamentation of both which, he could best in private glut himself)? or was it fear of the Majesty in his Master's face, or of weakness ⟨p. 102⟩in his own breast, which drave him out of the Hall to weep? surely perhaps all. He departed from the face of his Lord, from the company of his Tempters, provoked thereunto by the shame of his Fall, by the experience of his frailty: He departed from the committing of more sin, from the sight of more misery, because he knew not whether he should find more mercy, or be able to bear more sorrow. But when once Christ through the power of his Resurrection, ⟨p. 103⟩had clothed himself with Glory, and Peter by the Angels message was unclothed of fear, none more hasty to enjoy the benefit of his real Presence. He ran, and went down into the Sepulchre, not hoping to see there a weak and captive body, but (as he did) a conquered and deceived grave; only the relics of weakness, and the witnesses of power. What haste, think we, made he to rise up unto his Saviour's Kingdom, that was so ready to go down into his ⟨p. 104⟩grave? when Nature is raised up from her ruins and decays, when the Conscience is cleansed from the guilt of sin, or burden of sorrow, when a lapsed Saint hath regained his measure of Grace and Tranquility, he is so much the more speedy in Heavenly pursuits, by how much his former fall had been a disadvantage to his progress: and those sharp sins which, being acted, did wound him, do now, being remembered, only spur him forward in his way. The very sins of the Godly,