so great things as the possession of God and Eternal glory ought to undervalue all that which is is here below yea how resplendent soever with much more reason than a great King will reject a boot of hay-ropes to which hay indeed the Prophet compares all worldly glories in comparison of his Crown and Kingdom This was the cause that employed this servant of God to animate a Lady to the vilifying of the world by writing to her in this manner I shall tell you that seeing we are not Christians but by the tie the dependence and the life we have of Jesus Christ I wonder how it comes about that a thing so little as man drawn out of nothing in his first original infected with his first Parents sin and the addition of his own raised to so high a degree of honour as the alliance of Christianity gives him in being one onely Christ with the Son of God in being his brother and a co-heir with him in the life to come I wonder I say how after such admirable Prerogatives man can esteem the world and make any account of its vanities Shall he have his heart here and be a man of this world after these considerations The things of the earth whereof death also will quite strip us and for ever shall they fill our hearts in that little time we have to be here to work out our salvation to obtain the treasures prepared for us and to render thanks to God for his mercies should we not make appear to God and men a faith that is altogether lively in quitting freely the things of this world its honours false or at least not profitable its establishments perishable its opinions extravagant and all that which will pass away like a dream even as we see our great Grandfathers are gone and there is no more memory of them their risings and settings their contentments and displeasures which did stick so close to their hearts and which they had so much pain to accommodate to the Law of Jesus Christ and to the genius of their times all this is vanished away Is it not true that we have cause to think them to have been out of their wits if they considered any other thing but God in their ways The same thing will happen to us each thing will pass away and God alone will abide O how good it is to be fastned to him alone He encourageth the same Lady in another Letter thus Courage all is well we must dye to the world and search out the obstacles that it brings to our perfections to condemn them and to live in the world in the Apostles sense as not living there at all possessing it as not possessing it all Let us drive stoutly out of our mindes the complacence and affection to our brave houses let us ruine the delights of our gardens let us burn our Groves let us banish these vain images which we have of our children hiding secretly in the love of them that which is but indeed our own self-love though we seem dead to it and it makes us desire esteem and approve in their persons that which we condemn in our selves to wit the luster and glittering of the world I know there is a difference of conditions but all ought to reject these entailments as men account them upon great birth and noble blood I mean these principles of aspiring to the highest and entertaining no sufferings such principles as these our children carry from that birth we give them but it behoveth that the second birth which we procure them from Jesus Christ do repair these disorders Let us take from them this vanity of minde all these stately demeanors and the examples of these Grandees in story whose punishments are as eminent in hell as their presumption hath been glittering on the earth for otherwise it will be found we shall conduct them to no better end In another Letter he explains to her what he had said concerning her Houses and Gardens and which without this Explication would seem to be very harsh My design said he was not that you should demolish your walls and let run into a rude wilderness your gardens to be more at liberty for God I understand my speech of the disingagements and the ruines which must be made in our mindes and not be executed on things insensible and which have no worth in them but in form When I say we must set all on fire my thoughts were of following that admirable spirit of the Apostle who would that we have poverty among our riches and divestment in the midst of our possessions he means that our spirits be truly purified and separated from the creatures which we really make our solace because a Christian that tends to perfection doth himself great wrong in dwelling upon these amusements and entertaining in his heart other inclinations than those of Jesus Christ who saw all the world without destroying it but withal without applying himself to it the business of his Father and his glory was his life the windings of rivers and the ornaments of fields were to him but things of feeble consideration and not matters of imployment Hither it is that I would have one come and desire no more It is in effect thus That we must contemn the world whereunto God carries us and to bring us thither more efficaciously he permits by turns and often that we receive therein disgraces and meet with pain and trouble as when a man sets thorns in a way to make men take another The which Monsieur de Renty knowing very well see what he writes thereof to a certain person God hath his ends through all these contrarieties which is that those that are his should be yet more his in affiance in recumbency in life and in all The bruite of the world and its turning upside down are advantageous to make known its spirit its confusion its vanity to them that are not of it and who being in the spirit of death wait for nothing more there than for death bringing forth in the mean while the effects of life eternal which is a kinde of advancement out of mortality whilst we are in it CHAP. 5. Of his Patience QUestionless the humble man is patient because he esteems himself worthy of the evil he suffers and of much more also And if we will search into the true cause of our impatiences and drive up to the spring head we shall finde it to be our pride and the esteem of our selves Monsieur de Renty being most humble as we have seen was also by consequence most patient as this Chapter is going to relate And now at first when I am thinking of it there comes into my minde the description that Tertullian makes of patience representing her with a visage sweet and calm a forehead serene without all shew of frowning or sadness a carriage always equal few words and a contenance such as one sees in persons innocent and assured
aniting of our selves to this Son contiruing that life of his upon earth within this of ours by the direction of his Spirit Thus also in another Letter Let Jesus Christ be in each of us our bond our soul our life as he is our pattern Le ts take a nearer view of this Holy Original enter into his Principles lay hold on his desires execute his works and let men know that we are Christians Writing to another he spake thus I adore and bless with all my heart our Lord Jesus Christ for that he opens you his heart to possess wholly yours he will make it to dye and will reduce it to a Holy Poverty which shall cause you to taste the true Life and compleat Riches and to avow that it is a great mercy to belong to Jesus Christ I beseech him to bestow on you his most sanctifying graces and that we may beth dye well and live well by his Spirit Let us enter into this Spirit which will give us the Sentiments and the Energie of the Children of God All other presence and application to the Divine Majestie which is not by this union of the Soul to Jesus Christ is onely of the creature towards the Creator which carries indeed respect but gives not the life and approaches of children towards God their Father where being united to the Interior operations of Jesus Christ we finde there the affections of true children which we canâ— not have but by being united to the true Son Let us end with that which a person to whom he unbosom'd himself confidently in this matter reports of him This rare man said he appeared touched with a verie tender and fervent love towards our Lord Jesus Christ I have observed that his Conversations and Discourses did shoot alwaies at this mark to imprint in souls the knowledge and love of our Lord with true soliditie In discourse with him I had often from him these words I avow that I have no gust in any thing where I finde not Jesus Christ and for a soul that speaks not of him or in which we cannot taste any effect of grace flowing from his Spirit which is the principal of operations both inward and outward that are solidly Christians speak not to me at all of such a one Could I as I may so say behold both miracles and wonders there and yet not Jesus Christ nor hear any talk of him I count all but amusement of spirit loss of time and a very dangerous Precipice And at several other times he said Let us love Jesus Christ let us unite our selves to his Spirit and Grace miserable sinner as I am who love him not yet should I be much joy'd at least to see my defects supplied by others that love him fervently but I am too unworthy to obtain a matter so great and wherein my self do bear so small a part Seeing then this faithful servant and follower of Christ Jesus had so strong an application and intimate union with his Divine Lord as 't is easie to gather from what hath been spoken we cannot but ascribe to this application and union all his vertues which we are going now to speak of in several and to look upon them as effects of this cause streams of this Fountain and branches of this Stem PART II. His Vertues in particular and first the Vertues which did perfect him in regard of himself CHAP. 1. His Penances and Austerities AS our flesh and senses are by their nature and more by their corruption very opposite to a Spiritual Life and among the enemies of our weal and perfection none more importunate or more violent than they so God useth when he intends to elevate any to the accomplishment of vertue and to make them Saints to inspire in them at the beginning of their conversion a spirit of Penance and mortification of their bodies Monsieur de Renty being destin'd by God to this glory and quickned by this Spirit encounters his body with rigorous Austerities thereby to reduce it to its duty and hinder it from annoying him in his Interior Exercises He begins therefore to fast every day making but one meal which he continued divers years until he was enjoyned otherwise and to take more nourishment to be the better able to undergo the great labours he undertook for his neighbour Some days in the week he wore an iron Girdle set with a double rank of long prickles and a bracelet of the same on other days he disciplin'd himself rigorously at some times wore haircloath having continually on his breast a brass Crucifix reaching to the bottom of his stomack the nails whereof being very sharp entred into his flesh When he went into the Countrey and was come to his Inn he would go into the Kitchin to eat there if it might be among servants and other mean persons and that for two ends both there to morâ—ifie his body and to speak some good thing to those poor people and when night constrained him to take his chamber he dismissed his servants to lie in other rooms and himself past the night in a chair or cast himself on a bed in his cloathes and boots which was his custom till death Being come to Amiens where I was and a Lady one of the chief of the Town having prepared a stately bed in a brave Chamber for him in honour of his vertue and cuality he was much troubled and would not at all use it but laid him down upon a bench and the day after as being much asham'd complained to me of the Lady for it so that to enjoy the blessing of lodging him at her house she was fain to change his chamber and bed and to accommodate him after his own mode that is to say where he might not be so much at his ease His Mortification in diet was very great eating little and always of the worst as not forgetting that our misery came not but by eating of delicious fruit Dining in company on a Fish-day one of the guests that noted his actions observed that all he eat was some Pears onely and that with so great modesty and recollection that one might easily discern that his minde was on God and not upon his meat When one of his friends a man of piety at Caen entertain'd him one day at dinner with some little ceremony as a person of quality he ate very little became much mortified and ashamed as he declared afterwards that Christians should be Feasters adding that a little would suffice and what a torment it was to him to be where there was so muâ—h chear as a thing quite contrary to the poverty of Christ who notwithstanding should be to us for our rule He would tell his friends that a little bread a little lard and butter was sufficient Hereupon his friends acquainted with this grace of Mortification in him took no more thought concerning his diet knowing his best entertainment to be the meanest fare The perfection
his labour and vertue which had made this blessed work in him and had changed his nature for they that knew his youth report that naturally he was of a swelling hasty haughty and jeering disposition which he had so corrected or to say better annihilated that in truth it was admirable insomuch that he was become moderate staid patient humble and respectful in a degree of consummate perfection So that if we consider him well a man may say that he was of a disposition quite contrary and diametrically opposite to that which he brought from his mothers womb teaching us by an example so assured and illustrious that a man may prevail much over himself if he endeavour it sincerely and that whatever vice he hath he may at last rid himself of it if he force himself according to those words of our Lord The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force And therefore he recommended in a special manner this holy courage and the necessity of self-enforcement as being that by which we may measure what profit we have made in true vertue and a means also absolutely necessary for the gaining of perfection He wrote to a person that practised devotion thus O how much to be feared is it that we cheat our selves with the name and the appearances of devotion relying much on our exercises of piety which it may be are barely performed and in speculation onely never coming to the practise nor to the conquest over our selves In the morning we worship Jesus Christ as our Master and Director and yet our life all the day following is not directed by him we look upon him as our pattern and imitate him not we take him for our rule and guide of our affections and yet we do not sacrifice to him our appetites we make him the model of our conversation which yet is never the more holy we promise him to labour and get above our selves but it s no more than in imagination The truth is that if we know not our devotion rather by the violence and enforcement we make upon our selves and the amendment of our manners than by the multiplication and simple usage of spiritual exercises it is to be feared they will be rather practises of Condemnation than of Sanctification For after all to what purpose all this if the work follow not if we change not our selves and destroy not that which is vitious in our nature It is no otherwise but as if a builder should pile together many materials towards making of a brave Edifice and yet never begin it And yet we see the work of Jesus Christ is almost reduced to this pass amongst the spiritual persons of these times He said to another that the love which a Christian soul was obliged to bear to he vertues which Jesus Christ hath taught us ought not to end in the simple sentiments of esteem and respect toward them whereby souls of the common sort are easily perswaded that they have done their duty but therein they deceive themselves for that our Lords will is undoubtedly that they make a further entry into the solidity of his Divine practises specially in Mortification Patience Poverty and Renouncement of our selves and that is the cause why there are so few souls truly Christian and solidly spiritual yea even sometimes amongst the Religious was this that men contented themselves to make a stand at this first step I will end this Chapter and this Second Part with a Letter which he writ to his Director who had thought it fit for him to visit a person that had great need of succour and instruction for some spiritual dispositions which he performed with much success and benediction This Letter dated the 14 of May in the year 1647. will make us well see the great disengagement that he had from himself and his perfect Mortification attended with gifts inestimable and his great light whereby he clears and explicates matters of great subtilty The tenour is as followeth For the person whom you know and the visit I made him it is God and your direction that hath done all I am so much afraid to mingle therein any thing of mine that going to the place where he is yet I perceive I shall not visit him without a new order from you or that he much desire it I have not since that time so much as sent any commendations to him considering with my self that we must keep the man reserved and in great sobriety And I thought it fit to cast all this upon you as my guide in the business Ha Father the great imperfection of souls is the not waiting enough on God the natural disposition strugling and not brought into subjection comes in with fine pretexts and thinks to do wonders and in the mean while it is that which sullies the purity of the Soul that which troubles its silence and turns aside its sight from Faith from Affiance and from Love whence it hapneth that the Father of Lights expresseth not in us his Eternall Word nor produceth in us his Spirit of Love The Incarnation hath merited all not onely for the abolition of our faults but also for all the dispositions of grace whereunto Jesus Christ is minded to â—ssociate us of which this is the principal and was in him so far as he was man to do nothing our selves but to speak and act according as we receive knowing that we alone are not to do the work but that the holy Spirit which is the Spirit of Jesus and which governed him in all his ways is within us which would stamp upon us his impressions and give us the life the life real and experimental of our faith if ballasted and held back by patience we would but wait his operation This is it in which I feel my infirmity and yet whither I finde a great attractive I see that which I cannot utter for I possess that which I cannot express And the cause Father why I am so brief comes both from the imperfection of my natural disposition and from ignorance as also from a great largeness of the Divine goodness which works in me that which I cannot utter The effect of this is a fulness and a satiating of the truth and clearness of the magnificence of God of the greatness of Jesus Christ and of the riches which we have in him of the most Holy Virgin and of the Saints one sees here all praise and adoration and comtemplates them within I tell you here of many things me seems and yet all this is done with one draught so simple and so strong in the superiour part of the Spirit that I am nothing diverted from it by any exteriour employments I see all I understand all and I do though it be ill all that I have to do This is that I present you with to receive therein from you instruction and correction Thus we see the admirable benefits that come from perfect Mortification and
told him that of a long time he had left off the use of a sword and that after he had commended the business to God by prayer he should follow his inspiration assuring himself that his protection over us is much according to our relying upon him These words were found in one of his Letters to his Director My soul being armed with Confidence Faith and Love fears neither the Devil nor Hell nor all the stratagems of man neither think I at all on Heaven or Earth but onely how to fulfil the will of God in every thing He hath been noted to do very notable things through the strength of this Vertue even at such times when he hath been afflicted with great aridities in his Interiour In our aridities and privation of the sense and feeling of grace saith he in a Letter to a friend is manifested an heroick abnegation of our selves to the will of God when under Hope believing against Hope we shew our selves to be true sons of Abraham Isaac shall not dye though the knife be at his throat and in case the true Isaac should in fine be crucified it is but to make us conformable to the Cross and cut of our ashes to raise us to a true and better life Thus likewise he writ to his Director I have a very clear insight into the great want I have of my Saviour him I behold in his riches and my self in my deep poverty him I look upon invironed iâ— power and my self in weakness whereby my spirit being filled with content by the impression of these words Quid est homo quod memor es ejus What is man that thou art mindeful of him doth rest upon a total abandoning of its self into his bounty These words Longanimiter ferens bearing patiently have dwelt longe upon my spirit though I did not at first remember whence they were taken or what they meant onely this that I must wait with patience for the commands and approach of my Saviour without putting my self forward by my own inquest or endeavours but rest with faith and reverence begging his grace and hope in him But a few days ago taking up the New Testament in opening the Book I did light upon the sixth Chapter to the Hebrews where the Apostle speaks of Faith and Patience whereby we obtain the promises qui fide patientia haereditabit promissiones who by faith and patience shall inheret the promises and to prove this brings in the example of Abraham sic longanimiter ferens adeptus est repromissionem and so waiting patiently obtained the promise This passage touched me to the very heart and relieved my languishing together with another passage of S. James which presented it self to my eye at the same time Patientes igitur estore fratres usque ad adventum Domini ecce agricola expectat preciosum fructum terrae patienter ferens Be patient therefore my brethren till the coming of our Lord behold the husbandman waiteth patiently till he receive the fruit of the earth Hereby I was settled in peace upon the solid foundation of Hope and Abnegation As this incomparable Vertue enricheth the soul that is perfectly stated in it with a profound repose a solid joy a wonderful courage and sets it aloft above all Terrestrial things with a generous contempt of whatsoever the world esteems and desires giving it a taste of the pleasures that are Eternal as it is not difficult for him that hath assured hopes of a glorious Kingdom to set at nought a Pad of straw so did it communicate to this holy man all these excellent treasures and imprinted in his soul all these noble reflections Whereby he was incited with all his strength to encourage others in the pursuit of this Vertue knowing by his own experience the inestimable benefits thereof understanding it to be our Lenitive in all disasters our staff and stay in all weaknesses and our secure haven in all tempests instructing them continually how that God to the end that he might drive us into this Port and cause us to rest in it doth frequently permit us to be assaulted with temptations and tryals the deeplier to engage us to have recourse to him begging his aid and succour and relying upon him with confidence The like instruction he gave to a certain person upon occasion of the Apostles amazement when they beheld our Saviour walking upon the waters and took him for a Chost Think you this was without a special providence that our Saviour suffered his Disciples to go alone into that ship and permitted a contrary winde to arise Who knows not that in the same manner he fashions the souls of the faithful by his absences and by their tryals that he may afterwards manifest his power upon the seas and tempests quickning thereby our Faith and shewing himself to be the Messias and true Deliverer of the world But observe we how many Christians in their sufferings are affrighted with the Apostles seeing our Saviour marching on the waters Every thing makes them afraid the winds the waves yea even Christ himself that is the anxiteies of their spirit their own disputings and also those good coursels that others give them for their establishment upon Christ Jesus before God All this appears but as a Ghost to amaze them unless Christ himself graciously appear yet more unto them to comfort and strengthen them Shall we always want confidence thus to think Christ a Phantasm Shall we not address our selves to him in all our necessities as to our Lord and Deliverer The Jews brought all their sick folks to him and he cured them What is he become a greater Physician of the body than of the soul No no our little Faith our little Love our little Confidence is the cause of our languishings and unfruitful anxieties of spirit Let us go strait to him and all will be cured CHAP. 4. His Love of God SEeing the Love of God is without contradiction the most excellent and perfect of all vertues and that which principally and above all the rest makes a man a Saint we cannot doubt that this holy man was possessed thereof in a very eminent degree and that he loved God with all his heart This Love he founded upon his infinite perfections and favours which may be perceived by what he writ to his Director in the year 1648. concerning this Queen of all Vertues Our Glorious Lord hath from time to time with his resplendent beams shone upon my soul quickning her therewith which have appeared in such several manners and have wrought such great things in a short time as would take up far more to write them which really I am afraid to undertake or begin They all concenter in this one point the love of God through Jesus Christ his communication of himself to us by the Incarnation of his Eternal Word and ours to him through the same Word becoming our brother conversing with us and erecting as it were a mutual society
Blessed be that littleness which is held for weakness and yet overthroweth all the Power and Prudence of flesh Treating with some Religious Persons he seemed as it were rapt on a sudden with the consideration of their happy condition speaking to them thus O how happy are you my Sisters After which falling upon a discourse of their Vocation he spake so effectually as wrought in them an ample acknowledgement of their obligation to God and a courage to proceed in well doing This following Letter he writ to a Gentlewoman newly entred into Religion who next under God did owe her calling to him I thank my Saviour with all Reverence for those good dispositions to your Profession signified in your Letter I understand and am sensible of abundant grace wrought in you whereby I assure my self of a noble pregress I am to expect from the bounty of God who is to that soul that gives herself to him Merces magna nimis Her exceeding great reward You have made a leap which puts you in a new world Blessed and adored be God who in the fulness of time out of his wisdom and love to a soul sends his Son unto it to redeem â—t from the Law of Servitude and translates it into the Adoption of his Sons This hath he now wrought in you in a more special manner and the excellentest way that could be You was never united to Jesus Christ as you are now by your holy Profession You had heretofore something to give that was never before engaged and he something to receive that was not formerly in his possession But now all is given and all is received and the mutual donation is accomplished No more Self no more Life no more Inheritance but in Jesus Christ He is all in all things until the time that according to the Apostle he delevering us up all and wholly to his Father his Faâ—her also shall be iâ— Jesus and in all his members all in all for ever Amen Fourthly he had a very great Devotion to all the Saints in Heaven but more partifulatly to S. Joseph and S. Teresa whom in the year 1640. he chose for his Patroness and above all the rest to the Saint of Saints the B. Virgin in testimony whereof he dedicated himself to her Service at Ardilliers then when he designed himself for a Carthusian And in the year 1640. he desired to be admitted into the Society erected to her honour in the house of the professed of the Jesuits of S. Lewis and for many years he wore a seal upon his arm with her Image graven wherewith he sealed all his Letters We have likewise mentioned how he gave to an Image of Nostre-Dame de Grace a heart of Chrystal set in Gold to testifie to that Admirable Mother as he used often to stile her his love and that with this heart he resigned up to her his own Finally this man of God most entirely honoured and loved the Spouse of Christ his Holy Church reverencing every thing that came from her making great account of all her ceremonies saying That he found a certam grace and particular vertue in the prayers and customs of the Church conforming himself most readily to her practises Being present commonly at High-Mass in Paris he would go to the Offering amongst the people and ordinarily with some poor man He assisted at ceremonies where it was rare to finde not onely men of his quality but far meaner persons as the consecrating of the Fonts in the Holy Week at long Processions in all extremities of weather Upon which occasion he writ one day to a friend Our Procession goeth this day into the Suburbs and since our Saviour hath favoured us with this great mercy to be of this little flock we ought to follow his standard and I take it for a signal honour to follow the Cross which way our holy Mother the Church leads us there being nothing in her but what is glorious since she acts in every thing by the Spirit of Religion in the presence of God whereby she unfolds great mysteries to those that are humble and respective From which expressions actions we may infer that he being a man of such quality and taken up with such a multitude of business had a very reverend esteem of all the ceremonies of the Church otherwise he would never have rendred such Obedience and Honour to them And though it be most true that he highly honoured these ceremonies yet he desired likewise that by the Exteriour pomp that appeared to the eyes Christians might be led on to the Interiour and more Spiritual complaining that the outward Magnificence wherewith Churches are adorned do often stay and amuse them and instead of carrying them on to God their chief end diverts them from him To this purpose he writ thus to a friend We should take notice of that simplicity in which the Divine Mysteries were conveyed to us that we may not be held too long with the splendour in which at this day they are celebrated These thoughts came into my minde in hearing the Organs and Church Musick and beholding the rich Ornaments used in the Divine Office we must look thorow this state at that spirit of Simplicity Purity and Humility of their primitive Institution Not but that these are holy and useful but that we should pass thorow it to the Simplicity and Poverty of Bethlehem Nazareth Egypt the Wilderness and the Cross But above all he was singularly devoted to an union of spirit and affection and universal communion of all good things whith all the faithful in all places of the world and to be admitted into the communion of Saints being an Article of our Creed very dear unto him Wherefore he highly valued all of each Nation and Profession without espousing any particular spirit or interest to respect one above others to magnifie one and derogate from another He honoured all Ecclesiasticks Secular and communicated with them concerning all his Exercises of Charity for his Neighbour he gave great respect to all Parish Priests was very serviceable to him of his own Parish he frequented the Societies of the Religious loved and made use of them for direction of his conscience And notwithstanding the great variety and several orders of them in the Church yet was not his heart divided but affected with an equal esteem and approbation and a general affection to all according to their degree being guided herein by one Spirit viz. that of Christ Jesus which enliveneth all the faithful as members of his body in the same manner as out bodily members notwithstanding they be different in sight figure and offices are knit together and all perfectly agree because they are all quickned by the same soul All misintelligence and disagreeing is a sign of two spirits that rule there and division is the principle of death Concerning this communion of Saints he one day suffered some difficulty Whereupon he writ this excellent Letter to his Directoâ— I