Holy Week with Jeremy Taylor: "And now begins that great triumph"

And now begins that great triumph in which the holy Jesus was pleased to exalt his office, and to abase his person. He rode, like a poor man, upon an ass, a beast of burden, and the lowest value; and yet it was not his own; and in that equipage he received the acclamations due to a mighty Prince, to the Son of the eternal King: telling us, that the smallness of fortune, and the rudeness of exterior habiliments, and a rough wall, are sometimes the outsides of a great glory; and that, when God means to glorify or do honour to a person, he need no help from secular advantages. He bides great riches in renunciation of the world, and makes great honour breathe forth from the clouds of humility, and victory to arise from yielding and the modesty of departing from our interest, and peace to be the reward of him that suffers all the hostilities of men and devils: for Jesus, in this great humility of his, gives a great probation that he was the Messias, and the King of Sion; because no other king entered into those gates riding upon an ass; and received the honour of Hosannah in that unlikelihood and contradiction of unequal circumstances.

The Great Exemplar Part III, Section XV, 'Considerations of some preparatory accidents before the entrance of Jesus into His passion' (4)