all your Fathers were before you occasioning Charities always in this employment meditating on some portion of Ecclesiastes Forbearing as much as may be the entertainment of any long and entangled designs so that you cannot so contentedly go off the stage of this world and say a Nunc dimittis in pace when God calleth for it Carefully from time to time discharging all debts 2. For your behaviour in sickness in doing the duties proper to it First when sickness comes not being ashamed to shew fear and imagining it always more dangerous than it is and preparing your self always though in likelihood it is not as if it were a sickness to death gladly then taking occasion to reconcile your self fully to God and to conclude with the world that your recovery may more perfectly begin a new and better life or your end not surprise you unprepared In this not fearing so much the harm which melancholy and sadness may do to your Body as the mischief which security may do to your Soul and knowing that such sadness through obtaining of God remission of sin c is the readiest way also to procure your health and in the time of your sickness also ends in more joy For making this reconciliation Examining your self by what sin it is likely you have lately most displeased God and doing repentance and humiliation for it as if it had caused your sickness Jo. 5.14 Matt. 9.2 Examining your self more specially concerning sins towards your neighbour those chiefly against the 5 6 7 8 9. Commandments in which man's laws also enjoyn reparation And making restitution satisfactions Asking forgiveness c. Forgiving and declaring your forgiveness towards any that have so trespassed against you Confessing all your sins to God and endeavouring to do this as particularly as if all confessed were presently to be pardoned and all forgot to be answered for at the day of judgment Sending early for the Priest and confessing your sins to him as it is recommended to your practice by the Church in case of a troubled conscience and if your Conscience be not troubled for your sin then know you have yet more need to do it Receiving absolution and the Communion making then a singular Confession and Thanksgiving to God for all the greater mercies received through your whole life Giving alms to some poor and desiring especially their prayers for you Making resolutions and vows but not rash ones and if it may be with the advice of your spiritual Father and with making your professions also to him as a witness of them concerning reformation upon your recovery Avoiding much especially secular conversation and removing company from you Entertaining an attendant that can read holy things to you such as you shall direct and have provided in your health at that time to be administred unto you Praying extraordinarily if your pains permit Using and in all things obeying the Physitian Offering up a contented patience of these sufferings to God in regard of the far greater desert of your sins and that to your Saviour in regard of his far greater sufferings for you §. 160. Digr 1. Of the many times great uncharitableness and mischief of encouraging sick persons with hopes of recovery at sometimes making them omit the necessary preparations for death and at other times loose the many great benefits of sickness in humiliations confessions c. Digr 2. Of some necessary questions to be proposed to the sick See Notes of Sick Digr 3. Of various admonitions necessary to be used to the sick as they happen to be found in an ignorant or a sensless or a presuming or a despairing condition Digr 4. Of Psalms and other Scriptures proper to be read to the Sick As Psal 6.22 23.32.38.57.86.88 90.102 103.107.130.142 143. Job 1 2. Ezech. 18. The passion of our Saviour in one of the Gospels beginning at his Prayer in the Garden Jo. 17. Rom. 8. 1. Cor. 15. 1. Thess 4. Rev. 21 22. Digr 5. Of short Scripture-Ejaculations proper to be used by them See Notes of Sick Digr 6. Directions for the behaviour of the Visitors of or Attendants upon the sick Non consolari eos spe recuperandae sanitatis See before § 161. n. 1. Non plorare Non ridere Non alienos sermones miscere Non multum loqui necsubtilia Sancto silentio Deum precari See Vita Camelli De Lellis §. 161. 2. Exercising Christian Fortitude 1. Joyfully entertaining all those temporal miseries which happen to you for your sin which many other servants of God have both earnestly begged of God and not obtaining this have voluntarily infliected upon themselves and desiring that you may suffer here yet more for them Hic ure seca c. and not seeking too passionately to diminish them and whilst much grieving and humbling your self for the cause thereof yet accepting and rejoycing in the punishment and hoping in the execution of some part of God's righteous justice upon you in this world to find through Christ's merits the more mercy in the next Lam. 33.9 Jer. 30.15 2. Joyfully embracing the favour Phil. 1.29 of all those afflictions which happen unto you for doing your duty and for refusing to sin especially of persecutions Matt. 5.10 11. saying such words as these This is painful to me but acceptable to God and he will love me for it This thy will I willingly suffer and much more for thy sake O my Saviour who sufferedst so much for me 3. Yet taking great care that you mistake not God's judgments upon your sins for tryals only of your holiness bringing forth presumption instead of humiliation Digr That there is required a holy life and purity of conscience not only for the particular cause for which we suffer but general to entertain our sufferings with true comfort and joy Else you ought to bear them with great sorrow not for them but for your sins as God's true judgments upon you in relation to them tho executed as 't is usual through man's injustice God ordinarily punishing our innocence in one thing for our guilt in another thus making his scourges more bitter unto us 4. Not shunning nor preventing any disgraces by foregoing the smallest duty Using no compliance no diffimulation no flattery no timidity modesty or being ashamed of good but rather provoking evil and exposing your self on all occasions in any thing for Christ's sake to scorn hate danger c. without fear in thus doing of seeming proud or contemptuous Rev. 21 8. But the fearful 5. Vndertaking voluntarily and with all alacrity such sufferings tho easily avoidable by the enduring of which you may any way do the more good which troubles though it is lawful to decline yet it is more expedient for benefitting others to entertain Such were our Saviour's such St. Paul's Sufferings so much gloried of 1. Cor. 9. 6. One degree higher Out of the pure imitation of our Saviour and to be made in all things here more conformable to him Phil. 3.10 that
virtue if done only out of some motives of reason and not out of the love and to the honor of God and in obedience to his commanding them and out of love to Christ and to his Church or Members As if we said before every action of ours this I do for God's this for Christ's sake See Phil. 3.6 comp 9. 1. Cor. 13.3 Rom. 2.14 15. comp 3.9 Jo. 3.5 6. Non collocatur inter fideles propter opus suum qui naturali bono motus facit bonum non propter Deum This right end especially shewed in actions contrary to our own present good 9. The necessity of our improving the several particular talents and gifts received from God in bringing forth fruits proportionable for which gifts we must certainly give account Matt. 23.30 Luk. 16.2 10. The necessity of Perseverance in well-doing and the lapsibility of all conditions 11. The necessity of not deserting any part of our duty for any opposed sufferings which as they are provided by God for exercising our Vertue so are they to be willingly undergone and not we at any time for them to dispense with any part of our obedience 12. That all Christians in the happiest temporal Condition at all times one way or other are to undergo some Crosses if they will not yield unto sin 13. The Example of our Saviour and of the Saints in walking in all God's Commandments and chearfully undergoing all opposition for it Psal 18.21 c. comp 1. King 14.8 Isa 38.3 Neh. 8.19 2. Tim. 4.7 Job 13.10 11 12. comp Job 1.8 Lu. 1.6 Act. 23.1 24.16 §. 6 VI. Concerning the Reasonableness and Benefits of Holiness VI. Concerning the Reasonableness and Benefits of the Service of God and of Holiness Consider 1. Our Obligation to this Service 1 In Duty to God Where Consider 1. The obedience we owe to God's supreme power and dominion 2. The love to his transcendent amiableness and perfections 3. The gratitude to his multiplied mercies Our Creation Redemption continued Providence in all our Affairs our unexpressible dependance on him in our Being Working c. 4. God's Majesty to be contemplated in the several appearances of it to Moses Esay Daniel St. Paul St. John Rev. 1. chap. 5. God's Wisdome Especially to be admired In his conducting all things from the beginning still to more perfection In his alway bringing good out of evil In his ordering all the particular affairs of the world and of every man therein through the greatest seeming casualties in a symmetry as perfect and exact to his own Just ends could we entirely discover and compare all the causes and effects as that which we see in the wonderful natural Fabrick of all the parts of the world and of every man Psal 107.42 43. It a magnus in maximis ut non minor in minimis All which works of his Providence and Conduct at the great day of the consummation of all things his wisdome shall review and pronounce of them as of those of the Creation Gen. 1.31 valde bonn And then all his admiring Saints reiterate this Confession to Him Valde bona Valde bona 6. The excessive and appearingly-causeless Love of God to man 1. In several degrees the Saviour of all men 2. Patient and long suffering toward Sinners 3. Shewing Mercy and pitty according to the creatures greater impotency and misery 4. Rewarding to us the good he produceth in us §. 7. 2 In duty to our Selves 1. The great reasonableness 2 and amiableness of God's Service and of living in all Christian vertue and holiness Ratio perfecta virtus vocatur As when we look with indifferency on another man where Passion swayeth not our Judgment what a sweetness decency honorableness and heavenly peace and tranquility do we judge to be in patience compared to blood-thirsty revenge In meeekness in respect of peevish anger and frowardness In humility in regard of scornful pride and restless ambition In liberality compared to sordid niggardize In charity compared with lean envy In sobriety in respect of beastly and rotten intemperance How divine a thing a Republick of men all entirely honoring and obeying their Superiors who command them still in Charity intimatly loving and in respect preferring one another some patient in poverty others charitable in wealth when any sick all hasting to serve when poor to relieve when sad to comfort him all holy just chast temperate c. In comparison of a tumult of idle drunken debauched and sottish persons loving only from the teeth outward railing at backbiting scorning one another catching at one anothers wealth supplanting one anothers preferments tempting one anothers wives plotting treasons against their Governors lastly such as are described Rom. 1.29 2. Far less trouble and more freedome in it than in Sin Par mundus dat onus gravinsque The Acts thereof leaving behind them a singular delight in the Soul as those of Sin great after-disgust and discontent Vertue pleasing much better after sin before it is committed Only in such vertuous practice and in every good work small or great almost always a little pain felt for a while in the beginning and this to make it more rewardable 3. The great Reward of it § 8. 1 For the present 1. Tim. 4.8 1. A present union of us with Christ and God by the same holy Spirit dwelling in both 1 and quenching the thirst to all worldly things Jo. 4.14 Former sensual pleasures to one acquainted with holiness when he again happens upon them no more seeming what precious things they were but such as to a man do the sports of children contemptible or also to the more confirmed odious Quas Sordes suggerebant quae dedecora said St. Austine reform'd of his former sensual delights 2. Extraordinary illuminations and consolations from this Spirit especially in the time of necessity in extraordinary poverty afflictions persecutions and the excess of joy in the mind rendring little-perceived the pain of sense 1. Thes 1.6 2. Cor. 6.10 2. Cor. 4.8 9. only as it were afflicted poor sorrowful dying but indeed alway rejoycing rich possessing all things 3. Contentedness in all conditions as being always and certainly possessed of that which he only or chiefly loves Jo. 16.22 Jer. 6.16 Matt. 11.29 Phil. 4.7 And for other things less considerable partly by his submission in many of them as purely indifferent to God's will partly by God's condescending in many other unto his See Psal 4.3 Seldome having occasion of discontent Gen. 24.1 4. Tranquility of mind and joy of conscience for past actions and for doing good which joy though serious is very great And as they do greater good so still greater consolations accompanying it 5. Joy of mostwhat attaining their desires and ends because these honest spiritual following the divine not their own Interest 6. Great joy of hope with freedome from anxious fear for all good things to come Joy of Hope which useth to be in all worldly felicities a far greater joy than
to give you or also by your own reflections upon them whilst you are performing this Action §. 28. 14. Suppressing evil thoughts first motions of Sin c. 1. Suppressing evil thoughts and first motions of Sin and all lesser sins that they lead you not into greater esteeming no sin to be little and the most to be the malicious suggestions of evil Spirits which will make you the more to abhor them 2. Since thoughts may arise in you from three several Causes 1 not only from your self but 2 from the holy or 3 from an evil Spirit Much observing and having a great reverence or jealousy of them according as they may seem to proceed from the one or the other of these external principles The one working more powerfully in all the Children of God the other in all the Children of Disobedience but both working less or more ordinarily in both good and bad men And therefore great care and circumspection to be used herein what degree of perfection soever you seem to your self to have attained Digr Of the sinfulness and great pollution of the Soul by evil thoughts when long dwelt on and not suddenly removed 3. Suppressing when we cannot the inward risings in the Soul at least the outward motions of passion in the Body and endeavouring to hide them which indeed all Passions being also bodily motions of the heart is quenching them 4. Suppressing after guilty thoughts betrayed by some external passion yet the outward action or any part thereof These outward sins being far greater than those of the heart only because by the longer space of our consideration they have still more of wilfulness and malice require a more intense act of the Soul to produce them do more harm to others Ways to break ill Habits 5. To overcome ill habits contracted or to prevent prevent them feared rather assaulting them singly and bending all your force chiefly against one only at a time there being ordinarily in every man some Master-Sin which a many other serve and the rectifying of which helps much for all the rest In the morning resolving against it for that one day and diverting the occasions which that day may tempt you to it especially often in that day calling to mind how you have forborn it upon committing or rather about to commit it forcing your self and using some bodily gesture and saying some words of penitence As throwing your self down on your knees kissing the ground smiting your breast saying some part of the 51 Psalm or some other pious Ejaculations imploring God's help thinking on Death Hell Heaven setting down how many times you commit it c. for such taking notice of it is the first step to reformation Lastly making more special suit against it in your prayers 6. Often discoursing at times when free from the temptations of it of the sinfulness of the vice you are most subject to and of the excellencies of the contrary virtue For such discourse will not only outwardly engage you to others but by little and little inwardly incline you to hate and despise it When your Soul is more at rest and the temptations of the sin are not strong upon you strongly forcing your self with great courage to exercise some act of the contary virtue seeking out if you meet not with them some occasions for this purpose §. 29. 15. Cherishing all good motions in the Soul c 1. On the contrary cherishing and improving with recogitation upon them all good motions that arise in the Soul as inspirations of the divine Spirit without which we can think no good thing 2. Cor. 3.5 and therefore all good thoughts from it which Spirit the Apostle chargeth us not to quench 1. Thes 5.19 Not to grieve Eph. 4.30 Now if from it we derive our good thoughts then so often as we repel the one we grieve and quench the other Seeking any outward occasions that may excite good thoughts And when we cannot conquer our will praying against our will that God would make us able to will them And this wishing through the strength that God giveth will at last bring forth willing Per id quod homo potest venit ad id quod vult In things Spiritual doing our endeavour effects our desires to him that hath shall be given till at length he have abundance 2. Never neglecting or refusing to do a little Good as nothing valuable though it be but producing in your self or in another one single good thought or wish there being nothing little in God's service Nor to practice a small mortification as little profiting nor to forbear a little ill as no great hurt 3. Not suffering any though inconsiderable breach to be made upon a good custome nor any accrument as of little consequence to a bad Of the power of Custom Digr Of the great power of Customes Both of those of the affections and the will desires and appetites And of the intellect speculations and opinions inward habits restlesly inviting us as much as outward temptations Digr Of the great power of often remembrance 4. To introduce virtues and expel ill habits practising first in small matters rather than higher unless you perceive God to give great strength that you may not in the attempt be presently disheartned 5. Making hast and being speedy whilst you are well inclined in the execution of things well purposed and undoubtedly good For none hath continually the like fervour of the Spirit Si aliquando cur non modo Si non modo fortasse nunquam 6. Beginning a good action when not so well disposed to it without much consultation with the Flesh Quien siempre mira lo postrero nunca a comete gran trecho Et Incipere dat velle Beginning makes us willing The deliberation being as it were occupated by action Tutta la pena si senti un poco nel principio And Omnia inchoata tolerabilia facilia cito transeuntia magnam consolationem relinquentia §. 30. 16. Subjecting your self to another's conduct Subjecting your actions in all things not contrary to the law of God which things where is any doubt you are to learn from your spiritual Superiors to the conduct and guidance and commands of another And this according to some prescriptions of a rule or otherwise Or at least subjecting the most considerable or those more doubtful Whose reason if not of better judgment though such you may have if not faulty in your choice yet void of passion in another mans affairs can better guide you than your own some way or other partial affections §. 31. 17. Restraining your liberty with Resolutions and Vows 1. Restraining hurtful liberty with resolutions obligations vows to the forbearance of such a vice of such a temptation performance of such a duty or counsel at such hours on such occasions c. For by this we attain to some resemblance of the good Angels when binding up our former dangerous freedome we for the future necessitate our selves
light as we beg it from him Digr That the abilities of the understanding and will to any good are infused from God and bestowed upon Prayer 4. Sanctifying the use of every creature to you by Prayer and by the imploring of his benediction 5. Observing in all temporal Petitions much moderation and indifferency §. 80. 4. Praise 4. 1. Praise and Confession unto him abstracted from our own particular obligations and relations to him of his excellencies 2. Contemplating praising glorifying admiring the infinite treasures of his purest holiness wisdome goodness and the rest of his attributes and benefits general to all his Creatures Mankind Christians and his Church 3. Yielding a distinct Doxology to God the Father to the Lord Jesus To the Holy Spirit running over their several benefits and offices 4. Giving always this part of Praise and Thanksgiving a due share in your devotions Knowing that God is much more delighted in our praising than in our praying unto him this being done for his glory the other for our benefit And that you have many more blessings considering your unworthiness for which to praise and thank him than wants not considering your lusts for which to petition him And that careless thanksgivings make successless requests Lastly knowing that this part of your devotions especially conduceth to the begetting and nourishing the love of God i. e. the utmost top of man's perfection in you §. 81. 5. Acts of love aspirations oblations union c. 5. Resolutions of serving him better in those duties wherein you find in your self the most and the last defects and Resignation Consecration devotement of your self and all yours eternally to his service and the making an oblation to him of all your i. e. his gifts Christian acts or sufferings of your Saviour and his sufferings and merits performed for you uniting and annihilating your self wholly into his will rejoycing wholly in him and in the joys to come with him §. 82. 6. Intercession 1. For others 6. 1. Intercession Thanksgiving c. Ps 119.136.139.158 35.13 2. Cor. 1.11 Especially for our fellow members the Saints Act. 12.5.12 2. Intercession in publick Prayers is the more effectually and also the more zealously performed if it be not only general but particular 2. Tim. 1.3 namely for such a person friend family applying the General intercessions in such publick Prayers unto them 3. Using intercessions for others not only in a short remembrance but in the same length and importunity and form of prayers as we use for our selves In them either changing me into us intending and including such a one particularly together with your self or changing me into him praying for him singly Either by saying the Lord's Prayer for him or any other As forgive him his trespasses Lead him not into temptation And it is a singular Charity not to desist from such Intercessions tho these unasked so long as we know such person hath need of them Jam. 5.16 Digr 1. Of the benefit of other men's prayers for us and that they are very much to be desired Even those of inferiors Especially those of Saints and those of the poor who are in many respects nearer allyed to God Digr 2. Of God's hearing the Prayers of some other men more holy for us when he will not hear our own and his directing sinners sometimes to procure some others to pray for them that he may grant their requests Gen. 24.7.17 Job 42.8 9. Digr 3. Of God's frequently blessing sinners for other mens sakes who are righteous Digr 4. Of the benefit of intercession to the Interceders Besides God's returning our good wishes for others upon our selves Matt. 10 11.13 Psal 30.13 This mentioning of them and their necessities before God rendring us also more tender-hearted and ready to help them for with what face can we beg of God to be good to them when we can and do refuse to be so our selves The Benefits of Prayer §. 84. The benefits of Prayer 1. The great power of Prayer with God and the rich promises made to it in Scriptures even in temporal requests and these the smallest 1. The great power of prayer with God 1. God's Spirit especially assisting Us in Prayer 2. God's extraordinary favours illuminations visitations usually either in or presently upon the time of Prayer 3. The fruit and effect of Prayer many times not sudden but after many days and long petitioning Eccl. 11.1 Jer. 42.4.7 Act. 12.5.6 where the Church's Prayers not answered till the night before St. Peter's execution 1. Pet. 5.6 Eccl. 7.8 And St. Monica's Prayers for her Son St. Austine were not answered till first many years spent in them Not hapning that way or by that means we expect it And often hapening with great intertextures and artifices of second causes which hide to the inobservant the agency of the first Tho in which the less his power and force appeareth the more doth appear his divine and wonderful and secret contrivance and wisdome 4. Upon the requests of your prayers comming to pass by the agency of second and ordinary causes taking heed of conceiting these rewards of Prayers to be the effects of the ordinary Providence and of translating your thanks from God upon his instruments and unless he work singly of thinking he worketh not at all But especially acknowledging his more immediate hand in four cases 1. When his visitations and answers tho by second causes happen upon the instant of your Prayers 2. Or in the very point and exigent of your necessity 3. When you find beyond your expectation an extreme facility in the prosecution of your desires 4. Or a continual victory in the midst of many difficulties and oppositions 'T is a safe error if any dares call it so in attaining things known certainly to be good to impute too much rather than too little to God's hand in it by which you give him the more praise and in gratitude bring forth more obedience 5. Upon the requests of your prayers and those long and earnest successless taking heed especially then of the surrepency of some degree of unbelief As the imagining that God hears not minds not Prayers or not yours a Sinner or that he hath made o're all our affairs to the contrivance of humane wisdome and the ordinary course of second causes c. But most assuredly assuring your self that his Majesty himself hath heard and also hath rejected your request in this either because he intends to give it you better in some other way or because it is some way hurtful and inconvenient for you or because you are yet unworthy offending him to receive it or because he hath absolutely otherwise decreed to dispose of things and this is one of those his purposes wherein he is not to be swayed by Prayer as especially for not sending temporal crosses here to those whom he means to glorify hereafter therefore we find some requests denyed even to the greatest Saints tho importunately begging them To Moses Deut.
3.24 David 2. Sam. 12.16 Jeremy Ch. 7.16 St. Paul 2. Cor. 12.8 Our Saviour himself Matt. 26.39 And therefore St. John limits God's grants to things asked first according to his will 1. John 5.14 Which will also our Saviour interposeth Matt. 26.42 and the Spirit also hath a regard to Rom. 8.27 But the longer God denies you in any thing that after well examined seems to you necessary the more do you humble and reform your self and continue to ask him 6. Signs that God doth or will hear us Great confifidence in making our Prayer Great quiet and consolation of mind and courage to attempt a thing Or strong hope to receive it rising in us upon and after prayer 7. The ordinary conditions that Prayer may be effectual §. 85. The ordinary conditions that it may be effectual A strong faith and Confidence in God c. 1. Faith and Confidence not only that God can Mat. 9.2 but will perform our request will if there be no defect on our part and the request be for our good but this our good considered together with the greater advancement of God's glory which thing since we cannot certainly know neither may our perswasion of receiving our petitions be absolute else our perswasion will sometimes be false See 2. Cor. 12.8 9. Where the Apostle not destitute of this faith yet received a Denial See 2. Sam. 12.16.22 Matt. 26.39 And such confidence we should have especially where humane hopes fail and we have nothing else besides God whereon to rely See 2. Chron. 16.8 Matt. 9.22.28 Mark 11 24. 9.23 Act. 14.9 3 4. Matt. 15.28 19.26 13.58.14.30 31. 21.21 Mark 6.5 9.23 1. Tim. 2.8 This faith being required and rewarded by God because it is a great giving of glory to him both to his power as we believing him able and to his goodness merciful and to his truth and promises faithful 2. Much patience importunity and perseverance in our devotions the continuing of Prayer still rendring the Soul more and more capable of what it petitions for and constant dependance on God and waiting for an answer Ps 27.7.14 and in using means and prayer reliance on prayer not the means 8. Concerning the grounds of Confidence §. 86. 1. In respect of the Person prayed to God 1. The believing His particular providence over all affairs and continual agency in sustaining them The alike easiness and faisibility of all things unto him and the granting of our requests no more trouble or difficulty to him than the denial His extraordinary working many times contrary to the course of natural causes and inclinations of free Agents for the sake of men's Prayers §. 87. Digr 1. Of miracles not ceased tho from the decay of holiness in general and particularly of great mortification and frequent devotions they are much rarer than formerly And since a strong faith and confidence in God's power and goodness is required on our parts to the doing of them in some places the opinion that they are ceased which is opposite to such a faith is a great cause that they are ceased Digr 2. And these done all by Jesus Christ And usually by the instrumency of his Saints or Angels which Angels if there were not a particular providence upon the Saints prayers and necessities controling sometimes the common course of Nature and some things executed here by these other agents different from it why are they said to be ministring Spirits sent forth for to minister to the heirs of Salvation Heb. 1.14 Digr 3. Of a special Faith with respect to the effect ordinarily required to render us capable of receiving any miraculous or supernatural effect perhaps that faith viz. for receiving miraculous favours named 1. Cor. 12.9 the faith of doing miracles being set down verse 10. which faith though it seems to be a more extraordinary gift of the spirit yet as all other gifts 1. Cor. 12.31 14.1 it is to be requested and to be pursued and fortified with our endeavors the concurrence of which in a manner we know not God requires to his graces See Mark 11.24 Matt. 21 22. 1. Tim. 6.8 c. else the exhortations unto it were vain the reprehensions for the defect thereof causeless Digr 4. Of the Faith of one in respect of these miraculous effects very beneficial to another as of Parents for their Children or one Relation for another See Matt. 8.8 13. Jo. 4.50 Mark 2.4 5. Matt. 15.28 Jam. 5.15 those who are to receive such favour at least non ponentibus obicem by strong acts of unbelief §. 88. 2. In respect of the Person praying 1. His living an holy and sanctified life God not hearing the Prayers of Sinners Quae spes est nisi de aliqua conscientiae bonitate Sinners i. e. such as remain still unreformed and do not as yet address themselves to the works of repentance Especially his abounding in works of mercy God chiefly to such returning all mercy 2. In his praying exercising a great humility and this perhaps expressed by some mortification See this done by Kings 2. Sam 7.16 1. King 21.27 2. King 6.30 19.1 and sense of his own unworthiness of any of God's favours casting himself wholly upon his bounty and the many promises made of hearkning especially to the poor in spirit See Dan. 9.18.7 8 9. Jam. 4.6 com 5. Esay 66.2 comp 3. Psal 34.17.18 51.7 Esay 57.15 Gen. 18.27 Judg. 6.39 Prov. 28.14 3. His diligently calling to mind God's former mercies to him or to others like him for the strengthning of his faith and hope according to which God many times worketh Rom. 5.4 Psal 116.1 2. 2. Cor. 1.10 Luk. 22.35 Psal 78.4.2.43 4. His expecting all things only through the merits of Jesus Christ and asking them in his name §. 89. II. The Benefit of the exercise of Prayer upon our selves 1. Making us blush not to joyn afterwards our endeavors with professed unfeigned and fervent desires Excellently preparing and softning the Soul for the receiving any grace Nay by a powerful excitement of the Holy Spirit in us which also formes our Prayers working such spiritual graces in Us in the thinking and contemplation of them and it self planting those holy inclinations in the Soul whilst it passionately sues for them Every fervent Prayer to God being also a strong exhortation to our selves and all earnest petitioning that we may being at the same time a consideration that we ought to do such things and at once both working and begging So that he that can bring himself heartily to pray for any spiritual grace hath begun to possess it Digr 1. Of the indefatigable practice of this duty by our Lord and by his Saints who well perceived the rich fruits thereof Digr 2. Of strengthning and rendring more prevalent with God in matters of greater concernment our Prayers by adding to them Vows and Alms-deeds and corporal Mortisications PART IV. Counsels and Directions concerning Prayer Meditation and other Exercises serving for advancement of Piety and
a Guest but with great humility bespeak him as a Father recount to him her calamities and beg of him the remedy thereof acknowledging she is unworthy to be his daughter Treat ye with him as with a Father with a Brother with a Lord and with a Spouse sometimes in one manner sometimes in another for he will teach you what you must do to please him Observe that it concerns you much to understand this truth that God abides within you and that there we may abide with him This way of praying although it be vocally with much more speed recollects the understanding and is a way of Prayer that brings with it many good things being stiled of Recollection This she supposeth to be in our power by our endeavours to attain to Because the Soul in it recollects all her faculties and enters within her self with her God and there her Divine Master comes to instruct and teach her in a much briefer manner than 't is in other ways and to bestow upon her the Prayer of rest This is the lowest sort of Prayer which she calls super-natural and not in our power to acquire Because thus retired she may here with her self meditate on the passion and here represent the Son as Crucified and offer him to the Father and not weary the understanding in going forth to seek him on Mount Calvary or in the Garden or at the Pillar Those who in this manner can lock in themselves in this little Heaven of our Soul where abides he that created both the Heaven and the Earth and shall inure themselves not to behold nor stay where the exterior senses distract them let them believe that they walk in an excellent way and that they shall not fail at last to arrive to drink water from the fountain In this recollection the Soul retires the exercise of its faculties from these exterior things and in such a manner abhors them that tho unawares she shuts the bodily eyes not to behold them that so those of the Soul may see so much better Accordingly who walks by this way almost always in Prayer keeps his eyes shut and it is an admirable custome for many things because it is as it were a forcing ones self not to observe these things below This shutting the eyes happens only in the beginnings of such recollections for afterwards its needless since then we must use more force upon our selves to open them The Soul at such a time seems to fortify her self at the bodies charge i. e. in withdrawing from it its Spirits and leave it all alone and much enfeebled and thence to draw provisions and maintainance against it And although this power of retiring the faculties in the beginning is not perceived because it is not much for in this recollection there are degrees of more and less yet if it be once brought into a custome although at the first it causes some trouble because the body replies and disputes the business not perceiving that it destroys it self in not yielding to and suffering such a conquest if I say this for some days be used and we force our selves to it the gain thereof will be manifest and we shall afterward perceive that in the beginning of Prayer the Bees will presently repair to their Hive and enter there-into to make Honey and that without any diligence or trouble of ours because so it hath pleased God that by that former time of forcing our selves the Soul and the Will hath merited to be endowed with such a command as that in only intimating to them and no more that she would withdraw them the faculties obey her and retire unto her And although after a while they return to go forth again yet much is gained that thus they have been retired because they now go abroad only as slaves and subjects nor do that mischief in it as formerly and when the Will again recalls them they come with more readiness till after many of these Re-entrances of the Soul into it self it at length please the Lord that they should fix there altogether in a contemplation more perfect §. 103. And this which I have said although it appear obscure yet who will put it in practice shall easily understand it c. And since it so much concerns us not to go on in our Devotions slowly let us discourse a little how we may inure our selves to so good a way of proceeding in them Let us therefore make account that within us there stands a Palace of most rich workmanship its Edifice consisting all of Gold and precious Stones in fine every way such as is suting to so great a Lord and that you are in part the cause that this Edifice is such as indeed it is for there is no Fabrick at all of so great beauty as a Soul pure and replenished with vertues which by how much greater they are so much greater is the lustre of those precious Stones and that in this Palace lodgeth that great King who is pleased to make himself your guest and that he is there seated in a Throne of the greatest value which is your Heart This will seem at the first to you but a thing impertinent that I should make such a fiction to make you understand it yet it may help much you especially c. Again Chapter 29th She proceeds thus on the same subject The Soul 's entring within her self into this Paradice together with her God and locking the door after her against all things which are in the world Ye may know that it is not at all a thing super-natural but that it depends on our Will and that we are able to do it with that help of God without which we are able to do nothing at all not so much as to have of our selves one only good thought For this is not a silence of the faculties but a shutting them up within themselves §. 104. Many ways we go on in acquiring it both by dis-busying our selves from all other things that we may interiourly thus joyn our selves unto God and in business also by retiring sometimes into our selves tho it be but for a moment This remembring my self that I have such a companion within me is of great help and that which I only aim at is that we procure to stand with him whom we are speaking to without turning our backs upon him for no other thing than turning our backs seems it to me to stand in discourse with God and be thinking on many vanities All the damage comes from not understanding that most truly he stands near us and not a far off from us But how far is he from us if we go to seek him in Heaven The Lord teach this to those of you who do not know it I confess for my self that I never knew what it was to pray with any affection until the Lord taught me this way And I have always found so much benefit of this Custome and manner of recollection within