In-actions and fulfilling your merciful intentions upon me which are very great and above the comprehension of him that receives them For who can comprehend how the Infinite Majesty of God should lodge and be received in so vile so streight so unworthy a place as the Heart of Man The coming of the Kingdom of God into a Soul Sounds very delightfully and seems sweet I but the poor heart must first prepare to suffer the violent pains of a continual Agony The heart where God Almighty reigns must bid adieu to all Humane Life She dies to all Pleasures to all Consolations even Divine She has no more support no more relyance upon Creatures even the most Holy The bent of Nature and all Humane Inclinations are extinguished in her she has no more a mind for one thing than for another unless it be for a Supream Indifference nothing but Abjections Annihilations Poverty De-reliction are her Portion She is not capable of any other knowledge than that of Jesus Crucified and her Wisdom is Folly to this World This is the manner I ought to depend on your Grace O Blessed Jesus and have continual recourse unto you For you are my Father who nourish me with your own Substance you are my strength and support my weakness You are my Center where all my Agitations and Inquietudes rest and are at an end You are my End and utmost term of all my Desires At present I have no clear sight of the Purity of your Love but only feel in my self forceable Instincts that incline me to desire the Purity of Love and make me frequently break out into such Expressions as these O pure Love O durable Love Happy is he that seeks thee more Happy he that has found and possesseth thee But ah incomparably most Happy Happy beyond measure he that Perseveres with thee and Dies in thy embraces The End of the Fifth BOOK BOOK VI. Of Interiour and Exteriour Crosses CHAP. I. That we must have a high esteem for Crosses I Esteem it a great Happiness when we suffer any thing for Gods sake there being nothing on Earth whereby we can better testifie the Honour and Love we have for him 'T is in this state we are in a capacity to offer up to the Divine Majesty excellent Sacrifices and render to him most signal Services We cannot do more for a Friend than to procure his Glory by our own Destruction and make our selves nothing to make him All. Hence it is that Saints have set up a higher value upon their Sufferings in Prisons and Chains for the Name of Jesus than to be wrapt up with St. Paul into the third Heaven by Contemplation Be comforted then O my Soul in the different states wherein thou findest thy self so it be that thou dost suffer something for God it is enough If thou hast not the gift of Prayer but art in in aridity of Spirit suffer and be content there is more merit in this than in the most ravishing Contemplation Art thou afflicted with Sickness and so deprived of hearing Mass and receiving the Blessed Sacrament Suffer and be content for 't is better to be in the rigours of the Cross than in the sweets of Spiritual Exercises If thou canst do nothing for the good of thy Neighbour suffer and be content for 't is less meritorious to act for God than suffer for him If thy Exercises of Devotion and good Designs do not succeed as thou expectest suffer and be content for 't is better to suffer then to have all things according to thy desires If thou hast any deformity of Body or no great Parts of Mind provided thou suffer this Patience no Person can do better for this pleaseth God Believe me the best Science in the World the best Prayer the greatest Happiness is to know how to suffer for Gods sake We have a very great esteem for the Wood of the Cross of Christ we search after it with no small diligence no person can present us with a more precious Relique We Enchese it in Gold we keep it near our Heart we have a Veneration for it and preserve it Religiously and not without reason because 't is a small Relique of the true Cross of Christ In like manner true Christians the Children of Light do highly esteem those little Mortifications whether active or passive they undergo finding nothing more precious upon Earth and a greater guift cannot be presented to them then the occasions to suffer and mortifie themselves which they embrace with Joy and Love and with great respect cherish them not near but in their Heart considering that the state of Suffering is most agreeable to the dispositions of Jesus Christ and some small participation of his Sufferings 'T is as a little Parcel of the true Cross and the most precious Relique they can carry about them Let 's never be without having with us some of the true Cross let us make much of what afflicts us and we have Reliques thereof before we think on 't When we examine our Conscience let us ask our selves this question Hast thou O my Soul any parcel of the true Cross Any Reliques of the Sufferings of Jesus Christ Happy are those who have some part of them for they enjoy the occasions of the great tryals and proofs of their Love to Christ as can possibly happen The flames of Divine Love burn brightest in the furnace of Affliction St. Paul had a good piece of the true Cross when he said He carried in his Body the Marks of the Lord Jesus Christ for his Sufferings were indeed for Jesus's sake The most noble and glorious thing that Christ did upon Earth was his Dying for us on the Cross a Death most Painful and Ignominious that his Heavenly Father might thereby be Infinitely Glorified and he being thus exalted might draw the hearts of Believers after him and more powerfully engage their Affections to love and adore him A Soul that beholds Jesus on this Throne of his Ignominies which indeed is the Throne of his Grandeurs desires here on Earth to be united to Jesus Crucified as the Saints in Heaven enjoy him Glorified And thus she breaths forth her Desires True it is I cannot have a full Fruition of my Well-beloved in this Life however this is my comfort I can suffer for him Enjoyment is more sweet to the Creature but suffering is more lovely to the Creator and so I find enjoyment of the Miseries of my Banishment When a Soul has no mind to suffer in this World she has no mind to belong to God For seeing in this exile we cannot be his by enjoyment or but very little and being not willing to appertain to him by Suffering we cannot possess God And being without God we adhere to Creatures and loose our selves in disorder and vanity God finds not out of himself a more pleasing Mansion than in a Soul and Body Mortified with Sufferings there it is he takes his complacency and delight The
interests to advance God's glory A Soul ought to be well-pleas'd that her body shall be crumbled to dust and as it were reduced to nothing to exalt the Glory of God and glorifie his Justice A holy person much wondred how the Saints who are powerful with God kept their bodies so long entire not obtaining that they might be humbled by putrefaction because they knowing the inestimable value of humiliation which most glorifies God ought as it seems to have procur'd it to their bodies But if God think best to glorifie himself by preserving them from corruption his Divine Will is and must be the Rule of their desires Sometimes I have desired death as amiable because it would give me free access to enjoy God but at present I have the spirit of annihilation This annihilation is a state above that of death and by it we offer a perfect Sacrifice A Soul which seeks the Glory of God desires death to enter into this perfect annihilation What is most horrible in Death paleness deformity noisomness putrefaction pleases her best for these are companions of a perfect annihilation to humble her as much as possible O death how lovely art thou to such a Soul 'T is a strange thing that the fire of Divine Love burns no brighter in our hearts upon the frequenting of the Sacraments Oftentimes we exercise our selves twice a day in mental Prayer sometimes by holy Conferences daily Lectures and Considerations Now I think the cause of this is that we are sad dejected with abjections which so chills the heart that the fire of Divine Love is stifled thereby but when once humiliation is a joy unto us the heart presently becomes enflamed My Soul having a great degust of this life feels a wonderful desire of death she never was more sensible than now of her Captivity and Prison in this mortal body She sighs after the liberty to see God and enjoy him without any disturbance whatsoever for all created things do divert this happy exercise in which consists her felicity Being a Prisoner in this Body she is yet in darkness and distractions by eating sleeping several affairs and accidents O how is she crucified in being deprived of the full Embraces of her Beloved Quis me liberabit de corpore mortis hujus This made St. Paul earnestly desire to be freed from the Prison of this mortal body I admire the happiness of those who die in our Lord and do wonder at the blindness of of such who passionately desire this present life and are taken up so much with the care of the Body Goods Employments which are so many impediments of our converse with God and Christian Perfection O how importunate is sensuality with us and yet how contemptible is every thing that is not God! We ought not to be discomforted at the loss of temporal things because thereby some chains of our Captivity are broken Much less ought we to be troubl'd to see our Body the Prison of our Soul to weaken by degrees and threaten death Take courage we shall soon see our desires accomplish'd and shortly we shall enjoy God in full possession This state of desires and languishings after God is a state whereby we honour him as our final happiness and being so he deserves by reason of his excellence that we should continually sigh after him Such as have no love for their final end make no matter of it and give too much evidence that they find their repose in something else which is a most dreadful disorder But considering our happiness by death methinks I see nothing more lovely than crosses and abjections which can only refresh a Soul panting after the full possession of God and sometimes so content with it that she forgets the pain of her banishment seeing her self in a state wherein she may glorifie God in so transcendent in a manner which is what she chiefly desires aspiring to enjoyment without having regard to her proper satisfaction CHAP. XVIII Considerations upon the natural inclinations we have to evil A Stone held in the Air if let go falls naturally to the ground by its own weight and 't is no more matter of wonder when we fall into imperfections If God leave us to our selves we are presently in our own nothing weakness and infirmity And if the Grace of God was not very great unto us we should fall more often They may be thought valiant who bear up stoutly against the blast of strong temptations Alas take us at the best we are as frail as Glasses on a Cupboard If some are sooner broken 't is because they are more used and found in the hand of an ill manager Those that stand still on the Cupboard if they had reason would not brag of their strength but only acknowledg that they have not been tryed by occasions When the Grace of God keeps us from falling we ought not to take complacence therein as if we were better than others by reason of such Divine Favours but our content ought to be in the good pleasure of God who is so munificent to his Creatures yea the most unworthy To be thus pleas'd only with God's will is also very necessary when it is God's pleasure to leave a Soul to combat with some singular imperfection a long time without victory For it being the will of God to leave a Soul thus to fight it out she ought to be as well content as if she was more elevated by Grace seeing in this state she meets with the Divine pleasure which is the object of her complacency Insomuch that the Soul has no more inclination for one Grace than another but indifferent to all being content to have her faults made known to glorifie God by the love of abjection Secret faults do us the greatest hurt when manifested if we make good use of it they may bring no small advantage to us I have at present a wonderful distast of this Life which is hardly a Life but a continual Death because it deprives us of knowledg and and love in perfection O how this mortal life is a great punishment and full of Crosses Here we sin here we forget God and run a hazard to lose him eternally Love here finds little nourishment being fed with slender knowledg sometimes much clouded and continual propensions to evil Dear Saviour when will you deliver me from the body of this death This was the desire of St. Paul which I take the courage to make being so much out of love with this miserable life The End of the first BOOK BOOK II. Of the Supernatural Life which is the Life of all true Christians CHAP. I. The Idaea or description of the Supernatural Life WE can never attain Perfection by the sole conduct of human reason which is the light of Philosophers Faith is the light of Christians which teacheth us to renounce the ratiocinations of carnal prudence to follow in simplicity a Jesus Crucified To observe the Commandments of God as
gracious look from Jesus does easily scatter these clouds appease this storm and brings a calm and serenity to my Soul Methinks I see clearly that diffidence in our selves and confidence in Jesus to keep our selves at his feet in Prayer or any other manner near him as Grace shall suggest is an excellent means to Pray well and to receive from the Father of Lights what is necessary to advance us in our way to Perfection We must well observe that what Light and motions we have from Grace do more unite us to God by proficiency in Virtue but Natural Lights and Sentiments do not produce the like effect For example I may see my frailty and weakness by knowledge acquired by experience of the Miseries of this Life I may know the same also by the Light of Grace Grace with knowledge gives me also strength and courage to humble my self to confess my frailty to have recourse to God for his assistance A natural light has not the like effect but leaves a man in his pride and miseries or what is worse in sadness and disconsolations Our blessed Saviour in my fourth Prayer gave me a sight and sentiment of his adorable Person above all expression The eyes of my Soul being fix'd to behold the Beauty the Goodness the Grandeurs and Perfections of that admirable Compositum my Will could not be satisfied with those pleasures and contentments she then received O what great happiness does an enlarged Soul receive when the Veil is a little drawn from these Divine Mysteries Methinks I could have stood beholding this Divine Object all the days of my life I consider'd chiefly that the holy Soul of Jesus was enlightened with the Divinity to know what measures he ought to take during his mortal life to fulfil the Decrees of his eternal Father his wonderful Wisdom in choosing an humble poor and suffering life to instruct us Men and give Us Example and that worldly Wisdom is but meer Folly false and pernicious to her followers In this view of Jesus every thing in him seemed to me charming and admirable not the least glance from his eye or word from his mouth or sigh or tear from him but at present was to me an object of infinite delight and seemed to me sufficient to take up a Soul for ever with contemplation But the contemplation of God must be accompanied with imitation and by the conduct of his Grace we must enter into his states poor abject and suffering 't is in vain to think to attain to perfection any other way The only imitation and conformity to Jesus makes the Soul capable of pure contemplation and contemplation will preserve her in this conformity Ninth Day Jesus Suffering and Dying JEsus in the Idaea of Ecce homo crown'd with Thorns clad with a Purple Robe in derision buffeted mock'd spit upon and scourg'd was the object and subject of my morning Prayer I took great gust though full of compassion to see him in this posture because he himself was never more satisfied in that he could never better satisfie his Father And presently I said O my Jesus you were never thus array'd before now all the Glory of Mount Tabor did not cloath you with such Beauties doubtless the eternal Father takes infinite complacency to behold you in this state for you are a Holocaust all surrounded with dolours and deaths with contempts and annihilations In this entertainment I communicated and receiv'd my Jesus in this state who spoke in this manner to my Soul I come to thee to make thee like my self Thou wilt be never wholly acceptable to me or my Divine Father till thou become like me I then found in my self a great desire to be so and that I might take contentedly all disgraces and losses that any accidents brought upon me as so many advantages to make me like to my Saviour Ecce homo I then remain'd much comforted and fortified and very devout to Jesus in this state In my second Prayer I found my Soul attracted with a wonderful gust to behold Jesus crucified a spectacle pleasing to the eternal Father the comfort of Heaven and the terror of Hell I discover'd a certain way of beauty which cloathed the horrors of Calvary with wonderful comliness O my God! said I what pleasure is it to see the God of Beauty die for man upon a Cross This beauty is not in his visage now all disfigur'd but in the goodness of God which is here all in splendours and in the tryumphs of an incomparable love which sacrificed his most precious life for our Redemption The eternal Father was much delighted with this Beauty The Bruises and Wounds and Blood upon his sacred Head and Face did not make him disfigur'd in my eyes because the beauty of Divine Justice which was thereby infinitely glorified gave him a grace which is unspeakable Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum In this state Jesus appeared to me the most beautiful of men And my heart was so taken with Jesus crucified that I could not but love him in the state of his annihilations The Grace which this view left in my Soul was a particular esteem and love for sufferings I saw nothing more beautiful seeing they were a kind of Ornament to God himself and rendred him an object of singular complacency to his eternal Father Jesus hath sanctified the states of poverty contempt and sufferings through which he passed to make them sources of grace to such Souls as love them for his sake If the holy places where Christ was on Earth are in singular veneration much more ought the states of Jesus Christ If the men of the world think it a great honour to participate of the grandeurs of their Prince how happy and Honourable ought a true Christian to think himself to be if he be partaker of the humiliations of the King of Glory The Crown and Scepter are the glory of a King Poverty Contempts and Sufferings are the glory of a Servant of Jesus Christ In my third Prayer I was pierced with a wonderful feeling at the sight of Jesus suffering and dying on the Cross Being not able to comprehend how the infinite Majesty of a God should condescend so low I said O my Jesus why did you not rather let all men perish for 't is more just beyond comparison that men should be lost being Guilty than you suffer being most Innocent But in this tryumph of your love you have no regard to your self but to satisfie Divine Justice and that Infinite Charity you have for your poor Brethren in their miserable condition Suffer then even the death of the Cross seeing dear Jesus it is your pleasure I consider'd the eternal obligations we have to Jesus Christ in that he died for our Salvation It seem'd to me that hitherto I had been as in darkness in regard to this incomparable benefit Jesus Christ is our true and faithful Friend indeed and yet alas he is neither known nor regarded as
understand the Spirit of the Book by the Spirit of the Author I have describ'd as much of the Qualifications of that Excellent Person as I could collect from the French Preface the perusal whereof I assure thee good Reader is worth thy pains and consideration THE Author's Life Extracted out of the French PREFACE THE worthy Author of this Excellent Treatise was a Person whose Life was answerable to his Writings a true Interiour Christian elevated by God's Holy Spirit to Sublime Contemplation making it his Business to have his Conversation in Heaven while he was upon Earth 'T is said of Moses that after he had Conversed familiarly with God and descended from the Mount that his Face did shine with an extraordinary Glory So this excellent Christian came from his Prayers as it were from Heaven all enflamed with Divine Love raising a holy Fire in their Breasts who enjoy'd the Happiness of his Conversation But his Goodness was more Diffusive for many of his absent Friends received wonderful Benefit and Advancement in a Spiritual Life by his Heavenly Instructions and Divine Letters Which were so many as that from those Writings was extracted this Interiour Christian not long after he had left men to live with Angels by a Person of Worth and Quality who was so touched to the heart by reading some of his Letters that he thought himself oblig'd in Charity to make them Publick for the Common Good Especially in this Corrupt Age wherein alas we find more Formal than Interiour Christians And doubtless it was the Will of Heaven this Treatise should not lie hid but be expos'd to the View of the World having in a short time enriched the Hearts of many with inestimable Good who entertain it with great Joy and Satisfaction He was in the right who said Loquere ut te videam If once I hear you speak I shall know what you are For 't is impossible to read this Book without some Knowledge of the eminent Perfection of the Authour for what Soul unless irradiated with extraordinary Beams of Heavenly Light could make such Discoveries or give such Directions in Spirituality It was from hence that the Humiliations and Dolorous Bloody Sufferings of Jesus Christ so terrible to Nature did appear to him with a Ravishing Beauty being taken with nothing more in his Devotions than Jesus Suffering For he had a singular Devotion to the Humiliations of Jesus and thought himself a Person cull'd out by Providence to honour his Sufferings He did much affect to lead his Life in Abjections and yet notwithstanding his profound Humility he was much esteemed and admired by all who had the Happiness to know his Virtues Though he lookt upon himself as an unprofitable Servant yet God was pleas'd to treat him as a faithful Friend Though he desir'd the Bitterness and Rigour of the Cross yet God did oftentimes so visit his Soul with extraordinary Consolations that sometimes he would cry out When then good Jesus shall I suffer for you Though he desired to follow Jesus on Mount Calvary yet God was pleased to lead him to Mount Tabor and vouchsafe him the Glimmerings of Glory on this side Heaven Though too many make it their Business to find out wayes to please their Sensuality he made his Body a Continual Victime of Mortification hardly abstaining from Austerities when his Weakness required a Relaxation He earnestly desired that after the Example of Jesus he might finish his Life on the Cross and on the day the Church celebrates the Invention of the Cross God was pleased to rob the World secretly of so great a Treasure lest if his Sickness had been known publickly the holy Importunity of many Prayers might have prevailed with Heaven to defer his Happiness He wanted no long Preparation for his Death by a Languishing Disease but being Fruit-ripe for the Harvest of Glory by the constant Dews of Heaven and Fervour of Charity upon short warning with wonderful Content commending his Soul into the hands of his Saviour he joyfully embraced Death to live Eternaly This shew'd the extraordinary Triumph he had made over the World and Himself by the Power of Grace For though some even Great Saints who had left the World for Christ's sake to avoid it's Contagion seem'd timorous at their Deaths yet He with an invincible Generosity contemning the World without forsaking it did conquer Satan in the midst of Temptations and smile on Death as a Friend to his Happiness Though he chang'd not his Secular Habit yet he had fully banisht the World from his heart and without engaging in any other Profession than that of a perfect Christian he spent his dayes in the Exercise of the most Austere Religious And this was more admirable in him than in those Fountains which conserve their Sweetness in the midst of Salt Waters because he did not only keep the Purity of the Spirit of Christianity among the Infections of a Corrupt Age but without any great noise he made notable Conquests over the Powers of Darkness seeing by his Pious Endeavours he chang'd many Carnal Men into Spiritual Christians We may say without Vanity that the World never had a more Dangerous Enemy He stay'd in it the better to discover its Designs and convert Worldlings exposing himself to combate its Allurements that their Weakness might be known and to testify to the World that one may be a Perfect Christian in despite of this great Enemy of God and Godliness His Example hath made it manifest to all Persons of Quality that one may live like a Hermit in the midst of a City and may love Evangelical Poverty though not practise it in the Possession of Riches and that true Self-contempt is not impossible to such whose Birth or Imployments have advanced them to Honour and that without being an Apostle or Preacher one may be an Evangelist And lastly that throughly to establish the Maxims of Christianity solid Practice is more efficacious than thundring Eloquence And though the Graces which beautifyed his Soul did most incline him to deep Retirements and Contemplation yet he was so wonderfully dexterous in the affairs of God's Service abroad that his Eyes fix'd on Heaven did not hinder him from affording a Helping hand to the good of his Neighbour neither was his Zeal herein confin'd to one onely Kingdom His Piety was so ingenious that he found out wayes to be at the same time one of the greatest Solitaries and yet much ingaged in the Labours of them who endeavour'd the enlargement of Christs Kingdom His way of expressing himself is conform to his Thoughts and both of them to the Gospel where such who chiefly hunt after Eloquence and vain Curiosities will find nothing that will please their Palate But a Soul which relishes Evangelical Truths cannot but find a Gust in the Expressions of this Book which breaths forth nothing but the Spirit of Christianity And God grant that they who take it into their hands may find it working
that you withdraw from me your Divine Illuminations in Prayer and Recollection so as to be in a manner void of understanding sicut equus malus quibus non est intellectus Provided dear Jesus that I be but content with these humiliations it is sufficient I shall be happy Let others ask of you what they please as for me my desire is to be entirely annihilated and that my portion may be to honour your Divine humiliations We are not couragious enough to fight as we ought to destroy in us our sensual inclinations for we are too feeble against our selves and too indulgent to our defects in this spiritual combat But O my God put too your helping hand and work in us your will that we may be humbled and contentedly submit to your operation CHAP. VIII That the Soul is Rich when she possesses the love of self-contempt GOD has infus'd this thought into my Soul that the love of self-contempt and the desire of humiliation may be that hidden Treasure mention'd in the Gospel Thesauro abscondita in agro Matt. 13. 'T is really a great Treasure to love abjection yea a Treasure that contains abundance of inestimable Riches but they appear not outwardly being hid on purpose to preserve with more security And he only has this Treasure who keeps well hidden what he possesses 'T is a Treasure hidden and unknown to the world For who would imagine that there should be any thing so rich and precious in Sufferings and Humiliations Should our senses or carnal prudence or human reason make enquiry would they search here to enrich themselves and satisfie their desires We could never have thought that a hidden Treasure was here enshrin'd if Jesus Christ who put it there himself had not reveal'd this great secret to our Souls by his peculiar favour and merciful illuminations If we will have this Treasure we must buy it and give for it whatever we possess that is to say we must lay down our whole Patrimony the fatal Inheritance left us by our first Parents namely affection for Honours for Pleasures for Riches too much seeking our selves and our own interests the love of our own excellence and all the other wretched movables which we possess by being conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity If we will not be content to part with all yea the utmost farthing we cannot be enriched with this Treasure O how rich and happy is he who does possess it For it is a Treasure which as the world cannog give so it cannot take it from us and as long as we are in quiet possession thereof we find God in our Souls and such a profound peace as passeth all human understanding When one has purchas'd a good Estate in Land we are ready to say He is in a good condition what need he fear now having a sure foundation of subsistence If a War happen the Enemies can't carry that away with them they may indeed deprive him of his Money and Goods but for his Land that is fix'd and immovable 'T is the same case with this precious Treasure when once the Soul hath it in possession and will not part with it she need not fear she has sure hold of subsistence for her spiritual life Neither the World nor the Devil nor all the Enemies of our Salvation let them make never such furious on-sets can rob her of it it surpasses their power and belongs not to them 'T is true they may deprive her of some moveables as sensible consolations the love of austerities the desire to undertake brave actions for the Glory of God as to go to Canada or England for the conversion of Souls to the Catholick Faith in a word all the fair Idaea's of Spirituality The Devil the World Nature has a mind to these movables and a Soul that possesses only these has nothing but what may be taken from her but whosoever possesses this Treasure of the love of abjection and self-denial is rich for ever And when God is pleased to discover to a Soul the value thereof Prae gaudio illius vadit vendit universa quae habet emit agrum illum she joyfully parts with all she has to get it in possession We have a double right to pretend to the possession of this Divine Treasure The first is our natural inability to good the second is our criminal sinfulness These two lay upon us a continual obligation to endeavour after self-denial and annihilation and this endeavour is very pleasing to God who delights to see a Creature acknowledge what is due to it self and render to him his deserved Glory The Son of God began as a Gyant to run in this way of self-contempt by his Incarnation for 't is a wonderful humiliation for God to become Man and he finished this course by his Death on the Cross which was as low as humility could descend For God-Man to die an infamous death between two Thieves as a Malefactor and his whole life besides was but as one continued humiliation and yet alas we pass away our days in vanity calling our selves Christians tho' all for exaltation of our selves destitute of self-denial and true humility O wonderful blindness O Jesus poor and abject when will you draw me after you by the powerful attracts of your mercy Your ways are pure and pleasant and odoriferous to those whose Souls are enlightened with the Rays of Grace You O Jesus establish your Empire in humble hearts and reign there in peace as the Devil sets up his Kingdom in proud Souls and there domineers with intolerable Tyranny CHAP. V. What profit we draw from humiliations PAins and Miseries humble the body Poverty Riches Contempt Reputation and Honour Death Life aridities in Prayer spiritual Consolations all these conduce to purifie Virtue and sacrifice man wholly to God Some glorifie him by action some by suffering others by privations and humiliations and these last are the greatest Saints though here despis'd and known to God alone We ought to resign our selves to the conduct of God's spirit but if it was left to our own choice the way of abjections is best and safest Job did more glorifie God on the Dunghil than in his Palace Happy is he who in glorifying God follows the call of his holy inspirations in a way which the world neither does nor can well understand 'T is a great misery not to be willing to acknowledge that human wisdom is but folly before God which continually eggs us on to get out of the happy state of abjection upon the fairest pretences imaginable as the salvation of souls to help our Neighbours and the like Notwithstanding 't is safest to yield our selves up to the sole conduct of God's holy Spirit the order of whose providence we cannot shun God glorifies himself in Heaven by the exaltation of his Creatures on Earth by their Humiliation Let no person complain then that he cannot be instrumental to the glory of God for
is the degree of perfection O my God! how hard a thing is it for us not to seek our selves and not at all to pretend to esteem and excellence The desire we have thereof is as intime to us as the marrow of our bones and in a manner in all our actions whether for our selves or our Neighbours we seek more or less our own excellence The greatest Saints have had little esteem of their own Talents in their own eyes when they have been obliged to make them glorious in the sight of others And unless they did cause them to appear for the good of others they did tend to humiliation plunging themselves in their own Nothing to bring down thereby all Pride of heart CHAP. XI That we ought to leave our selves wholly to God to become annihilated IF we put our selves into the hands of Jesus Christ he will treat us as his Father treated him for Divine Love has severity as well as Divine Justice Happy is that Soul which all on fire with Divine Love is not content nor satisfied till she has so wholly sacrifie'd her self to God that the love of the Creature is burn'd to nothing This Love is a Sun full of fire and light which by little and little draws up the vapours from the Earth that is the Creatures and drinks them up I have a business in hand which puts me to hard labour namely to mortifie my self in spirit and affection to all Creatures if I can bring it about I shall be happy All that I have done hitherto is but a preparation to take up my Cross and entirely to follow Christ in his humiliations I see him born in a poor abject manner in the eyes of men and thus like a Gyant he begins the course of his abjections Why do we delay to follow him by annihilation poverty and self-contempt Let 's never leave him whatsoever we suffer For my part I have made a solemn protestation that I will follow him so close by being crucified to the world that every moment of my life I shall be able to say 'T is not I that live but Jesus crucified who lives in me Let us not wonder at the proceedings of Jesus Christ who preaches to us nothing but death and annihilation the Cross and abnegation 'T is because our Soul infected with sin wherein we are conceived is so strongly corrupted that all her operations are impure Jesus Christ is come by his grace to cleanse this impurity which is so deeply fixed and in grain that except we resolutely correspond to the workings of grace in us we shall still remain in our imperfections which grace tends to bring us to self-contempt and annihilation Having this day received my Saviour in the blessed Sacrament I kept my self as it were wholly annihilated while he continued in me and permitted him to in me and for me what he pleased both in relation to his Father and my poor Soul and those persons for whom I had interceded in the dreadful Sacrifice It seems to me I ought not to mingle the operations of an impure Creature with those of Jesus O that Jesus would alone work in me what is my duty I ought to plunge my self in my own Nothing in his presence If I must love God Jesus will work this in me if I must pray Jesus will be my Advocate if I must glorifie his Father he will glorifie him and I will sweetly consent to all his operations O Jesus be you All that I may be Nothing work your will in me I will remain in my Nothing to let you work all in me without resistance Many good Souls honour the abjections of Jesus Christ but few will practice them or imitate his poverty and humiliations Shall we think that it did not beseem you to be so debased and thus to suffer O Jesus is not this to make no account of your example and condemn you of Folly who are the Wisdom of the Father 'T is a great folly to be thus censorious and certainly the more we participate of your poverty and humiliations the more we participate of your wisdom Come then O my Soul let us follow Jesus poor and abject and live poor with him and thereby testifie our love to him and our fidelity CHAP. XII That we must renounce our sense and human reason to love humiliations THe impediments that our sensitive part brings to perfection are easie to be discovered but the interpositions of human reason are nice and delicate and few discover them They are hard to conquer and many cannot be persuaded of their badness for reason is ingenious to seduce by a thousand fair pretences which we dare hardly condemn appearing so reasonable but the example of Jesus Christ is above all reason and human prudence What reason was there that the Roman Emperours should live in tryumphs that cruel Herods should shine with Honours and melt in Pleasures that the hard-hearted Jews should enjoy all worldly contents and abundance and in the interim the Son of God should be born in a Stable should fly by night into Aegypt live a poor life in a shop with a Carpenter overwhelm'd with pains and disgraces However these are the proceedings of the eternal Father to confound thereby our human prudence and teach us to renounce our selves if we will be good followers of Jesus Christ As long as we give more ear to the persuasions of human reason than to the light of Faith we shall never make any great progress in Piety If one be in a poor and abject condition human prudence is for Advancement and Riches when any occasion presents it self If one be born to Honours and Possessions reason says Leave them not to become poor and abject How can we draw our selves out of Nature to imitate Divine Jesus if we will always follow the Maxims of men We are very busie to live in the world according to our condition but we do not remember sufficiently that our chiefest care ought to be to live the life of Jesus Christ and let all other obligations give place unto it Jesus Christ executing the eternal purposes of his Father in a poor despised painful life did infinitely glorifie him thereby Before the Incarnation God was not infinitely lov'd and glorified out of himself but only in himself inasmuch as the humiliations of one that is God brings an infinite glory to God which before he had not A Christian Soul likewise executing the divine Will of the eternal Father by following his Son in a life of humiliations and self-contempt does glorifie him with sovereign Honour For 't was decreed from all Eternity that the Members should live the life of the Head Quos praedestinavit conformes fieri and first suffer with him that they may at last with him be glorified All human reason must yield to this divine determination O Jesus how strange are the foundations of that perfection to which you call us They are nothing but Deaths Renunciations
Poverties Abandonments and Crosses so that whatsoever is agreeable to Nature seems wholly contrary to Grace Why do you not dear Saviour bring man to his Nothing in a moment by your Omnipotency to make him thereby a new Creature Why will you that he must annihilate himself and contribute to his own destruction O how the methods of your Wisdom are admirable Your design is hereby to bring man to love you But he can never do this more generously than by the strongest efforts of self-contempt and annihilation Human reason prompts us to self-love and self-esteem Divine reason inspires us with self-contempt and abnegation Abraham sacrificing his Son did foolishly in the judgment of human reason as being an enemy to Himself and his whole Family but this was an action of wonderful prudence in the judgment of Divine reason shewing thereby that he loved God more than himself and his dearest Relations Come then O my Soul let us strive to be dead to all things but God and to annihilate our selves for his sake I see an unspeakable beauty in the horror of mortifications and sufferings seeing they are the source from whence purity flows into the Soul CHAP. XIII That self denyal and annihilation is better learnt by practice than speculation I Know now better than ever that abjection is the way wherein we must march to advance assuredly to the perfection we aim at all other ways are liable to deceit but self-denial is without delusion O how few do consider the proceedings of Jesus Christ and fewer dive into and comprehend his holy dispositions But fewest set upon a perfect imitation of what they know Let us fall to work we know enough of it We are not ignorant how Jesus humbled himself in the Womb of his Virgin-Mother and there remained nine months and at his Nativity did increase his humiliation by being born in a Stable continued them all his life-time and finished them by his Death upon the Cross the grand Theatre of his humiliations We know all this it only remains to imitate him Grace will conduct us if we faithfully correspond to God's Inspirations To this end God permits that our Friends fall off from us that some little disgraces happen that we are somewhat despised and suffer by others that our imperfections are discovered and made known and that we are censur'd for undertaking to aim at perfection All this tending to humble us is good what way soever it come and no better thing can arrive unto us To be faithful on these occasions doth far transcend all speculations If you still complain of cross accidents if you don't hide your self from the eyes of men if you love not poverty and contempt and the things of this world have still some hold upon you thou art not annihilated and God hath not wrought the marvels of his love in thy heart Hearing sung in the Church these words of the Psalmist In toto corde meo exquisivi Te I have sought Thee O Lord with my whole heart it seemed to me that our blessed Saviour answer'd me interiourly Thou hast made a fair search after me every where but thou wilt not find me any where on Earth but there where I have been in the stations of my mortal life in solitude and silence in poverty and sufferings in persecution and reproaches in crosses and annihilation The Saints find me in Heaven in the splendors of Glory and Joys ineffable but this is after they have found me on Earth in Disgraces and Pains I am throughly convinc'd of this Truth and humbly thank our blessed Saviour for making it so clear unto me and I beseech his infinite goodness so to imprint it in my heart that I may practice it without delay Alas how long shall I behold the excellency of humiliations by Divine Irradiations darted into my Soul and practice them so little Divine Jesus take from me this rebellious heart if it refuse to be conformable to you in your annihilations open my breast and take it from me for I had rather have none at all and die than have a heart that has other Maxims and Affections than what you have taught me O my beloved Jesus I do not in this desire cruelty to my self but a signal favour The eternal Father who beheld you hanging on the Cross with complacency will not be offended with this bloody spectacle O my Jesus what a love have I for your Cross and humiliations The view of their beauty so well-pleasing to your eternal Father does at present so ravish and transport me that I shall become as it were a Fool I shall lose my senses and speak I know not what unless dear Jesus you put a stop to your Divine motions and eclipse those Heavenly Rays which present to my view sufferings and humiliations so amiable I have a particular Devotion to make a Litany of Jesus in all his humiliations and when I feel a repugnancy to the practice of annihilation and self-denial I find great encouragement by reciting it Have mercy upon me Jesus poor and abject Jesus unknown and despised Jesus hated calumniated and persecuted Jesus abandon'd by men and tempted by the Devil Jesus betray'd and sold at a vile price Jesus blamed accused and condemned unjustly Jesus array'd with a shameful Garment Jesus buffetted and mocked Jesus reputed a Fool and to have a Devil Jesus scourged in a bloody manner being bound with Cords Jesus thought worse of than Barrabas Jesus exposed naked with Infamy Jesus crowned with thorns and saluted with scoffs Jesus sorrowful to death Jesus oppressed with injuries pains and humiliations Jesus affronted spit upon and despightfully used Jesus charged with your Cross and our Sins Jesus crucified between two Thieves Jesus dishonoured before men and thought as nothing O good Jesus who hast suffered for the love of me an infinity of disgraces and humiliations above my comprehension imprint powerfully in my Soul an esteem and love of them that I may practise them by your example CHAP. XIV That a Soul espousing Jesus Christ espouses also his Cross and Sufferings THe infinite Wisdom of God has condescended to espouse the lowness of our human Nature by his Incarnation This same human Nature hath espous'd the Cross Sufferings Abjections Death and when a Soul espouses Jesus Christ she contracts an eternal Union with all these during her Pilgrimage O happy Alliance She is married to Jesus and Contempts and Sufferings are the Dowry O precious Riches If she love her Beloved indeed she ought to have a tender affection to the gifts she presents to him at the Espousals because she gives them and he much values them O my Soul being thus espoused to Jesus Christ behold then how strictly thou art bound and engaged to him for hereafter thou must suffer pains of body griefs of mind affronts and injuries thou must be well content with humiliations love disgraces and make sport for others thou must be content to be thought but unconstant by Devotes
the Treasures of the Earth We ought daily according to our abilities to examine our selves to the end to purifie our hearts from all affections that tend not to this supernatural Life It resides in the superiour part of the Soul and therefore we must not wonder if the inferiour part has degusts and aversions from it We must expect that Nature Sense Friends the World and ordinary Christians will keep a noise and trouble our ears with many Arguments against it But to all this it is enough to answer in few words with St. Blandina Christiana sum Christiana sum I am a Christian Let us say to such who endeavour to divert us I have undertaken to lead this supernatural Life I will never abandon it maugre all the contradictions of worldly Maxims and the repugnances of sensual Nature I know to become a perfect Christian I must be turn'd up-side down destroy'd annihilated according to my natural inclinations hate in a manner all that the world naturally loves Riches Honours Pleasures yea though innocent and love what the world naturally hates Poverty Contempt and Sufferings This is a great attempt but we have powerful helps for we can do all things through Christ strengthening us CHAP. III. That we ought with St. Paul to convert our selves wholly to God I Am now resolv'd in good earnest to convert my self wholly to God to be taken solely with his Divine Beauty and Infinite Goodness forsaking all Creatures which heretofore have too much taken up my time and affections O my God! deal with me as you did with your Apostle strike me down to the ground humble me make me blind to all things but to You who are in the interiour of my heart beaming forth Lights which discover sufficiently your Divine presence This makes me ask you O my God what you will have me to do And methinks you answer That this manifestation of your presence in me should make such an extraordinary impression on me as to change my life and conform my self wholly to your Divine will and pleasure Behold it seems to me this is what you would have me to do First Not to persecute the sentiments and inclinations I have to a Christian Life by taking part with the struglings of old Adam in me St. Paul persecuted Jesus Christ in persecuting the Primitive Christians and I also persecute the same Jesus when I stifle the motions of Grace in me and will not suffer my Soul to live his life which he did lead here for me to follow Pardon me good Jesus I will no longer persecute you by stifling your holy Inspirations I desire to be a Christian and your Disciple I will profess Christianity in the face of the Sun and only be asham'd to live after the Law of old Adam To be a Christian this is my Glory this is my Life this is my Delight Poverty Contempts Pains Humiliations I will no more be affraid of you but make much of you seeing Jesus hath loved you even to death To live this Life we must become blind and have no other light than what the rays of Faith afford us For Nature cannot teach us the Grandeur Excellence and Eminency of Christianity St Paul after his Conversion suffered a thousand hardships He was whipt banish'd despis'd mock'd imprison'd tormented us'd as if he was the filth and off-scouring of the world which is as much as to say St. Paul after his Conversion was a Christian to death nothing could deter him from living the life of Jesus Christ Let us then O my Soul be true Christians that is let us be content to live in Sufferings Persecutions Mortifications and the Ignominies of the Cross of Jesus Christ Let us embrace the wisdom of the Word Incarnate and become as Fools in the eyes of the world who persecute true Christians that is those who die to themselves and all things else to live to Jesus Poor Christian Life little art thou known how ill art thou treated in the world Thou dwell'st in the lips of many but few afford thee a place in their heart I am fully persuaded that a Soul truly converted loves God entirely that this entire love of God is a perfect union with his goodness that such a union implies a universal detachment from the Creature that such a detachment cannot be got without the profession of Virtues and among the rest Poverty and Self-denial by which we are interiourly disengaged from earthly things and exteriourly when God pleases contentedly suffer miseries sickness loss of Goods and whatever the world naturally abhors as evil but by the work of Grace are for our greater good because they advance our union with God When we abound with Riches and Honours we live in a continual fear of having too great an affection for them but in sufferings a Soul possesses a stronger assurance of Divine Love Nothing but Grace can teach us these verities and a greater Grace can only make us relish and practice them the weight of our natural inclinations still hindring us from rising to so great Perfection When we give up our selves to God with resolutions daily to advance in Virtue we can more easily conceive what this perfection is than practice it However let us take courage nothing is impossible to God and we shall find doubtless this Jewel by a perfect abnegation that is possessing nothing not the very means of serving God but with a spirit of resignation To follow Jesus naked on the Cross we must divest our selves of all Creatures that we may be solely united to him Yea dear Jesus my desire is only to be for you my resolution is to serve you and in what manner you please be it by action or by suffering or contemplation I will be attached to nothing but You my desire is to be dis-engag'd from all Creatures to find You and possess You as my only happiness CHAP. XV. Of the Alliance we must make with the holy Folly of the Cross AFter many illustrations of Grace which have cleared up to me the beauty of the sacred Folly of the Cross after many proposals and reviews I have at last espous'd it saying with fervour the same words which Christ us'd to his Spouse in the Canticles Sponsabo te in aeternum My Friend my Spouse my Sister I have espoused thee for ever Methinks I say these words for ever but yet faintly my infinite frailties making me fearful I may become an inconstant Lover Notwithstanding I say for ever with a real heart in hope that by virtue of that immense Love whereby the Divinity hath for ever espoused our human Nature and this same Humanity hath espoused the Cross sufferings and abjections our blessed Saviour will vouchsafe me some part of the Grace of this Divine Alliance to enable me to walk his way and live his life in annihilation humiliations and self-denial Let us then O my Soul live this life of the Son of God any other life is but a real death Jesus
according to Nature and must employ all means and Motives to this effect I will set down some of them 'T is a good Motive or means to renounce all Creatures and our selves by a spirit of denudation saying with great fervour and affection Away Creatures get hence from me and leave a place in my heart for God alone 2. 'T is a good Motive to do this by a spirit of Poverty for it is not possible to follow Jesus poor and abject unless in due circumstances we be willing to leave all things for Jesus sake and become poor to follow him Let us therefore be content to quit all things joyfully and be glad to have nothing to possess God himself alone 3. ' Tisae good Motive to die to all things by a spirit of abjection What greater happiness is there O my Soul than to live in humiliation seeing this was the life of God upon Earth To be despised with Jesus is a state of beatitude Worldly Prosperity is a hindrance to our happiness 4. 'T is a good Motive to abandon all things by a spirit of oblation sacrificing and annihilating our selves sincerely to pay homage to the Infinite Majesty of God with such a confidence in him so as to rely never more on any Creature Quid enim mihi est in Caelo aut à te quid volui super Terram Deus cordis mei O my God! shall any Creature take part of my heart with you when all is yours If it was possible to love you too much I might give place to something else but seeing I am infinitely below my duty in that particular what Creature can pretend to have the least part with you CHAP. IX Of the liberty we enjoy by the exercise of the Supernatural Life 'T Is wonderful to see the great liberty which a Soul enjoys by the exercises of a supernatural life When the illuminations of this state irradiate a Soul throughly she enters into a new region of light full of Peace and Love marvelous large and spatious in which she lives in high union with God A union which is not so liable to vicissitudes and disturbances as formerly because accidental occurrences as sickness disgraces c. do not hurt such a Soul by reason they make no strong impression in her and by consequence being become less sensible she is not easily diverted from the supernatural Object of her love Yea such a Soul improves hindrances and divertisements to her greater recollection and increase of Divine Love because in this state she is dis-engag'd from the Creature and so freed from fear of miseries which she can chearfully embrace as the occasions of her happiness whereby she enters into a perfect liberty and great purity of Virtue I could never well understand what that is which is called Purity of Virtue but now I see 't is the state of a supernatural life wherein the Soul lives no more in her self and of her self and for her self but in God and of God and for God being wholly separated from the Creatures and united to God Alas how is this poor Soul afflicted to do things so much below her self in this high condition For oftentimes she must act according to her natural inclinations and the dictates of pure reason which affords her matter of sighs and languishings after her Beloved This is that which kindles in her breast an ardent desire to be dissolved and leave this earthly Tabernacle wherein by the common misery of mankind she lives a life displeasing to her self for being not wholly for God as she desires it seems to her a kind of death And seeing she cannot continually live this supernatural life without vicissitudes it is as it were a death unto her A Death unknown to sensual men but such that are spiritual are very sensible thereof O Jesus deliver me from this life of mortality seeing here I cannot live your life of purity in comparison of which all other lives are but death and corruption To see so clearly the excellencies of a life so lovely and not to be able to live but little of it considering my frailty makes me resent my misery and acknowledge dear Jesus how necessary your Grace is for me O how great is the dependence which my Soul hath on your mercy 't is so mighty and essential dependence that words cannot sufficiently express it However this comforts me herein that it gives you all the Glory of the Interiour beauty in the Soul which is a work more magnifies your Power Bounty and Wisdom than the whole outward work of the Creation Your greatest wonders dear Saviour are secret and hidden A Soul that lives this supernatural life above her inclinations does more set forth the great power of God than to elevate the Heavens above the Earth for this is as miraculous as to elevate the Earth above the Heavens This makes me O my God desire to live this blessed life that I may thereby bring greater Glory to your Name Assist me powerfully with your Grace for if I be once left to my self I shall relapse into my natural weakness which is but a meer Nothing and Infirmity Some trouble themselves too much in philosophising on this spiritual life which is needless it being enough to say The Spirit of Jesus must be the Spirit of my Interiour 't is He by whom I must live this life and act accordingly and so free our selves from other considerations which may hinder our liberty to follow this light and fall faithfully to practice on the occasions of Crosses Contempts and Disgraces which happen to us in this life I ought daily to endeavour after purity although I cannot attain the highest practice because the course of my life wherein God has placed me will not permit it nor does exact of me to attempt of my self the grand effects of purity lest I should be discourag'd by failing in the enterprize This is only the perfection of the greatest Saints and herein we must give our selves up to the conduct of the Spirit of Jesus Christ who being infinitely wise we need not fear having him for our Leader But as we ought not to be too rigorous so we must not be too faint-hearted in the ways of perfection but apply our selves with love and resolution to all occasions by suffering peaceably and with contentation whatever injuries we may receive from others in seeking too much their own interest All sufferings are to be entertain'd with love but especially what we suffer by Injustice For is not this that which the Son of God hath done principally upon Earth by suffering innocently Do not therefore say I would suffer this injury if he that does it had the least reason for it for this proceeds from self-love and passion It may well be that he has no reason to do you this injury but Divine Reason and the spirit of Christianity teach you to bear it patiently 'T is good to suffer thus and in this to imitate Jesus is
pleasing to him And seeing this exercise of the supernatural life does bring with it a universal Peace and this Peace cannot be preserved without suffering contentedly all injuries whatsoever this excellent life does teach us holy Patience Now this Patience preserves this Peace and this Peace brings with it an admirable Liberty and Resolution to mind principally the One thing necessary which is to give up our selves to God and his direction CHAP. X. Our greatest happiness on Earth is to profess the way of Christianity I Have a great resentment of joy and thankfulness to see my self a Member of Christ's Church and in the number of the Faithful I have a sensible taste of this happiness which is incomparable O my God! what shall I return unto you for having prevented me with this signal mercy why have you chosen me out among so many thousands Alas this is the excess of your sole bounty to me To be a Child of the Church O what a happiness is this 'T is of more worth than to be Monarch of the whole world The Church is the Congregation of the Faithful that is of those who believe and confess Jesus Christ and have no other Maxims nor Sentiments than his O my Soul let us then live as becomes our Profession that Jesusmay live in us according to his holy will and inclinations To be a Member of Christ's Church is to be a person who ought to have an affection for humiliations and crosses to be well content not to thrive in the world and to advance in Virtue by opprobrious usage and contradictions What a misery is it to see us live so little in the exercise of Christianity We account it an honour to be in authority to be well descended to have a generous spirit but to be a Christian we are affraid to own it by our actions O the beauty that adorns our Christian Profession How wonderful is it and yet how little esteemed by us I shall be very honourable and happy to keep that with me when other things are gone and vanish'd O how amiable are the Maxims of a supernatural life in what an excellent order do they put all things They give to every one what is their due to God all Honour and Glory and to me a wretched sinner Contempt and Confusion For I ought to consider my self as a centre of all miseries and deserved punishments God is the Centre and Object of all the adorations of Men and Angels Glory is his just tribute but to me belongs confusion If I should be beaten disgracefully I ought to take it with contentation to see Justice so well done to me on this occasion And if I was truly animated with the spirit of Christianity I ought as much desire to be humbled as worldings thirst after Honours Praises and Preferments 'T is a supernatural disorder not to love Ignominies and not to endeavour the destruction of our corrupted Nature Jesus hath built his Mystical Body on the ruins of our Natural Body and we cannot form in us the same life of Jesus without the ruin of ours that is to say our natural life according to our depraved inclinations Poverty Pains Contempts your dear Companions good Jesus make sometimes my heart ake and then again they refresh me breathing forth such sweet Perfumes as chear my spirits A Perfume that purifies and calms my Soul into a fit temper to converse with you I will now wonder no more that your Spouses run after you in the Odour of your Perfumes A Perfume that doth strengthen me to accomplish the desires I have to be conformable to you My heart dilates it self with hope to see that happy day in this life when I shall be free from all molestation of Creatures and have some participation of the poverty and abjections of Jesus crucified We cannot live here without some Director or other for either the Humanity of Jesus will direct us or the Humanity of Adam will govern us If we live the life of Christianity the First will conduct us and impart to us such directions as his holy Soul receiv'd from the Divinity which are all for the Cross and humiliations If we love only a human life the Other will guide us in the ways of self-love 'T is as great a miracle for a Soul to live a supernatural life as for a stone to elevate it self into the air because the corruption of sin hath made the Soul so heavy that of her self she cannot but tend downward to sin and misery This is that which magnifies the power of Grace in us So that it is a prodigious vanity to boast of our good actions when being done by the supernatural power of Grace they are not the fruits of human Nature If a Soul loses the sight of the light of Faith she will soon lose her self in the Mist of self-love If she does not live in a continual mortification by curbing her natural appetites she must needs fall into superfluities and imperfections The sweetness and joy that a Soul receives from austerities crosses poverty denudation of Creatures makes her spiritual peaceful chearful and affords her solid content and satisfaction The content and delights she receives from sensual pleasures though lawful as Meat and Drink temporal successes Reputation c. make her carnal and afford her but a false peace and vain joy and instead of elevating her to contemplation do more or less depress her to sensuality CHAP. XI That Truth is only found in the Spirit of Christianity the rest is Vanity WHen the beams of the light of Faith are darted into a Soul they discover to her that there 's nothing true indeed but the verities of Christianity which Jesus came from Heaven to teach us and all the rest but deceit and vanity O what happiness is it for a Soul to be thus irradiated Then she begins to know how she hath been enveloped with darkness and dwelt in obscurity O what joys do now refresh her How rich and glorious is she in perceiving that what she thought to be true Riches Glory and Joy is false and counterfeited and in reality but poverty infamy and sorrow These heavenly Illustrations do open her eyes to see perfectly the vanities of this world which now she values not but Jesus is her only joy her life and verity Whatsoever is not Christian that is to say according to the Maxims of Christianity she esteems now as folly death and perdition and what to the world and the flesh is folly death and perdition she accounts to be wisdom life and the greatest gain O when the rays of this light do pierce a Soul how on a sudden becomes she knowing content and elevated 'T is hardly credible how much such a Soul is alienated from her self and whatsoever is not God She sees so much wisdom in the folly of Saints and so much beauty in their miseries that all the allurements of the world cannot win her affections For having been taken
eminent ways but judging our selves unworthy thereof and content with little our Saviour shall please to give us we must co-operate humbly and faithfully with that small portion of Grace we have already and not grow idle wishing for those eminent Graces wherewith perhaps our Souls shall never be beautified This is one of the chiefest points of humility to be content with that little portion we have in the state of Grace and judge our selves unworthy of God's favour 'T is true there 's nothing we ought so highly esteem as Grace and its increase in us and desire it of God with incessant prayers but this must be with perfect submission to his Divine will and pleasure that we may not disturb the peace of our Souls On one side I behold my extreme misery and I find my self so depressed that all my natural strength and endeavours do what they can to the utmost can never bring me out of my self On the other side I burn with desire to be wholly for God by living a supernatural and spiritual life It is to you O Divine Spirit I address my sighs the infinite source of all Graces you know I have a longing to live this spiritual life in the exercise whereof I shall find the true practice of Divine Love by which I shall satisfie my ardent desires to be wholly for Jesus and shall live no more after my natural inclinations and the Maxims of human Prudence But I see how impossible it is for me to attain this unless you vouchsafe to assist me with your illuminations against my darkness with your strength against my weakness with your continual supplies against my relapses For how often O Divine Spirit have I begun this supernatural life and fallen from it conquer'd by my Nature and worldly temptations Draw me after you so powerfully and continually that I may no more return into my self but may follow your attracts with perseverance I will follow you dear Jesus in the states of your mortal life in annihilations contempts poverty and sufferings And if I lose the sight of you in those obscurities which sometimes cloud my Soul yet let me not lose courage Provided I continue in your ways that is in the esteem and love of the true Christian Life you will not be far from me it being impossible that Jesus annihilated and suffering should not be near to a Soul suffering and annihilated Well then though we may lose the sight of Jesus the light we have in Prayer leaving us though we feel him not by sensible influences yet we are assured that he is near us if we be in his ways by self-denial and a love of humiliations for his sake O how happy is a Soul to be content to follow the annihilations of Jesus without the feeling of his persumes and sweetnesses She does practice the purity of love in this condition For to be deprived of light and consolations which is very harsh to Nature and suffer it contentedly is one of the most excellent acts of a spiritual life which consists chiefly in a perfect resignation to suffer as well inwardly as outwardly when God pleases I am very sensible by experience that there 's a vast difference between thinking and doing talking and living this true Christian life When we meet with no repugnance we find it not difficult to practice Virtue whereof the Idaea's are as sweet as the Acts are bitter of such as consist in privations and sufferings I am in a state wherein I feel repugnances and am resolved thereby to humble my self the more and keep the peace of my Soul by an entire confidence of the succours which the Grace of God will vouchsafe unto me I consider that nothing was more seeble than the Apostles before Pentecost They hid themselves abandon'd their Master in his sufferings and Peter deny'd him but after they had received the Holy Ghost he infus'd such strength into their Souls that they became powerful and couragious to admiration CHAP. XV. That 't is impossible to live this Supernatural Life by Human Prudence THe supernatural Life is a continual mortification of depraved Nature 1. For 't is certain First That we cannot live this excellent life but by annihilating our sense and reason 2. Secondly That this life is wholly according to the Spirit which cannot be but the Spirit of God which inspires the Soul with his influences and sacred motions 3. Thirdly That the Soul which lives this life must be elevated above sense und reason whether it be in Prayer or the practice of Virtue which cannot be done but by offering up her self to God as a continual Sacrifice That though oftentimes w must do things sensual as to eat and drink yet these must be done as Grace directs us And other things according to reason as to love our Relations and Friends yet this must be only in God and as his Oracles do dictate to us O life of Grace how art thou a continual death and mortification Who lives Christianly lives a Martyrdom Tota vita Christiana Crux est Martyrium However 't is a joyful Martyrdom for solid joy cannot but make glad the Soul where Grace inhabits O that this fundamental truth of our Salvation did once well sink into our hearts The Son of God and eternal King of Glory leaves the bosom of his Father and becomes man to live and die in infinite humiliations Jesus gives us life by his death He puts us in a state of Grace by ruining himself according to Nature He purchases Eternity for us by yielding up his temporal life And the Evangelist expressing his death doth on set purpose use these words Emisit Spiritum He sent forth his Spirit Without doubt he sent it into the hearts of his faithful Servants to the end they may learn to live by his Spirit to him who died for them So says St. Paul Misit Deus Spiritum Filii sui in corda nostra ut qui vivunt jam non sibi vivant sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est What remains then but that we banish our carnal Spirit which carries us on to sensual delights although sometimes not sinful Let us love the Spirit of penance of suffering of self-denial and humiliations Gerson hath an excellent saying By how much the more Nature is mortified by so much the more Grace is infused We must often call to mind that the Grain of Wheat cast into the Earth except it die cannot bring forth fruit If we do not die to our selves and the World and the Spirit of Nature we can never become perfect Christians nor bring forth the fruits of Divine Love We must be as nothing before men that we may be something in the sight of God Why should the Disciple be above his Master The Spirit of Grace and the Spirit of Nature do continually jar and war one against the other The exercise of the spiritual life will afford us light to discern their different motions but when
Desarts This makes one a Citizen of the whole world every place is indifferent to such a Soul for being not attach'd to any Creature God alone is what she desires whom she knows is all in all and his presence alike in every place When we are sad for the absence of any Friend 't is for want of light from Heaven seeing our greatest Friend is continually with us And indeed 't is injurious to God present in us to be troubled at the absence of any Creature and it is as much as if we should say to God You alone are not sufficient for me 'T is an excellent means to bring us to a denudation of all Creatures to be willingly content with their absence yea hardly to think upon them by reason of the veneration we have of the grandeurs of God who being infinitely present with us we cannot voluntarily be taken up with any thing else without some sort of injury to his infinite Majesty 'T is a great Mercy when Divine Providence orders our affairs so as to bring us off from vain occupations seeing we can never possess God fully unless we be dead to worldly things As long as they flatter us and go on as we desire they take us up too much and we easily forget God but his amiable Providence has a thousand ways to make them disgustful to us by losses by maladies by falseness of friends by ill success of affairs by the substraction of sensible favours and by a distast and bitterness which at last we find in all worldly contentments We who understand not his amiable designs do oftentimes our utmost endeavours to shun these things as no small miseries and yet this is indeed the Paradice of holy Souls whereby they find God who is most present to that heart where no Creature finds entertainment And when such a Soul tasts the sweetness of God she disgusts the Creatures and though they importune her she generously contemns them and 't is a punishment to give any attention to their allurements When a Soul does not engage her self in worldly affairs but by the order of God her Interiour will receive no prejudice for she is always in a state to return to God whom in a manner she does not leave in those employments And the same light which discovers to her the intime presence of God makes her see also the orders of God in respect of external affairs to which she yields a peaceable and ready obedience For she is for doing what God would have her though she must lose for some time that sweet repose which she possesses by the enjoyment of God What makes her retire into her internal quiet is not the quiet it self nor the sweetness thereof but the order of God who is pleas'd to unite a Soul to himself by intervals and gives her a gust by his presence that he is her centre and final happiness But when God will have it so she changes also her operations and leaves God in a manner to converse with Creatures She is so dis-engaged that she willingly moves not but by God's motions which carry her whither he pleases either to enjoy him or do good to others all is indifferent to her because she seeks nothing but to please God Nevertheless 't is true that a poor Soul enamour'd of the sweetness of God's presence and of the internal peace of this enjoyment does not without some regret return to exteriour Objects and sensual Functions She then neither speaks nor hears nor takes refection without some reluctance because being sensible of this infinite Good present with her and finding nothing in the Creatures but misery and dissatisfaction she cannot well quit this excellent Object to turn to the deceitful figure of sensual things Her Treasure being within her all her thoughts and her affections are there also I have sometimes felt in my self desires to be blind deaf and dumb to the end I might be more entirely separated from all Creatures and more intimately united to the Creator present in me experiencing with grief that my Soul oftentimes forgets this Divine presence when she makes sallies out upon the Creatures by the Gates of my Senses Well then I must keep them shut that my Soul being cloister'd up within her own walls may be wholly taken up with God alone CHAP. IV. That the presence of God is clearly seen in a purified Interiour THe Idaea of a Looking-glass is very pertinent to explicate this matter For God makes himself sometimes to be seen in the Interiour of the Soul as in a well-polish'd Glass in the same manner as the Sun or rather its figure is visible in a Fountain of pure Water The Soul sees not the face of God that is the priviledge of Glory but she beholds him there more clearly than elsewhere God painting his resemblance in her in the same sort as the Sun shews his visage in pure water But the purity and peace must be very great in the Interiour of such a Soul to present the impression of this presence For as the breath darkens the Looking glass in like manner voluntary imperfections sully the purity of the Soul And as the least motion that troubles the Fountain makes it lose the Image of the Sun so the extroversions and sallies out towards Creatures makes the Soul lose the sight of the Divine presence in her When God manifests himself so present to a Soul she must regard nothing but him otherwise she loses her happiness it being not possible to behold the Image of the Sun in the Fountain together with those that pass by the way We must let them pass without gazing on them whatever Friends they be otherwise we shall find that our Beloved will veil his face from whom we our selves have turned our eyes There is a time to speak and a time to be silent Let us therefore in this happy moment speak to no Creature and give this reverence to the presence of God in us as to regard It only and nothing else It sometimes happens that God permits the Devil to shew his visage in his place This is when the Soul is molested with black thoughts wicked representations foul temptations fond imaginations and then she must guard her self with patience in the acknowledgment of her unworthiness and confess that she deserves to be continually banish'd from God's presence But if our fidelity be great in this state of darkness and interiour disquiet it will not be long e'r God shew his face and make fair weather There be some who loved others so passionately while they were alive that they go to Magicians to procure a sight of them after death and are ravish'd to behold them in their enchanted glasses A Soul passionately enamour'd on God is ravish'd to behold him though but for a moment in her Interiour and fears no Motifications nor the loss of all Creatures if they do but purifie the glass to shew God to her According to the degree of
Purity in the Soul we find the presence of God in us and the following Instructions in my judgment may conduce to purifie the Soul and preserve her in Purity 1. An indifference to every condition to any employ whatsoever whereby God may be glorified 2. To be regular in our Exteriour Actions not to busie our selves too much and to do them with great attention 3. To be well rooted in the Spirit of Mortification to love Suffering and Humiliations a manifest sign of a purified Interiour 4. To have a great love for Jesus Christ dying on the Cross for us 5. To have a continual recourse to God for a supply of his Grace with a constant dependance on it 6. To be dead to the World and worldly things 'T is said That God is in the fond of the Soul and there is hidden so as to find him we must hide our selves there also by recollection and an internal Life which Spiritual Authors call The state of Introversion The night time is most conducing to advanee this disposition when all creatures are in a manner dead to us making no impression on our Senses whereby we better conserve that reverence we owe to the presence of God in us O how many Irreverences are we guilty of on this account We leave him alone when we perceive he is in the fond of our Soul to receive our homages and we turn our eyes from his Majesty though he regard us Just as if one by special favour admitted into the Closet of his Prince to converse with him should presently turn his head to look out of the Windows to behold the Passengers A Soul that is sensible of Gods presence is not guilty of such ordinary miscarriages The least word or action that tends not to God is troublesome to her because that being unwilling to leave that respect she owes to Gods presence she fears the least irreverences as death And seeing that all Creatures are nothing to the Creator she often cries out Quis ut Deus Deus meus omnia Who is like unto God My God is all in all unto my heart In this state the Soul has not only a great respect for God as God but for Jesus Christ God and Man and for his Doctrine and for his Maxims The privation of all Creatures does relish better with her than the possession knowing for certain that to enjoy God by such happy experience is of more worth than the World CHAP. V. That our union with the Presence of God ought to be the Rule of our Actions THat Soul has no small obligations to God who manifests his Presence in her Interiour and makes her sensible of this blessed union I know very well that this union is so full of sweetness and desirable that 't is of more worth than the enjoyment of all Creatures But 't is also full of extreme rigour separating a Soul without any pity from whatsoever nature loves most dearly She must then bid adieu to the most innocent Pleasures by being generally dead to all things but God or what relates to him O what a pain is it not to dare because God is present to be complacent to our Friends or be serviceable to them with a natural inclination but only upon a motive of Grace For such a Soul must not follow the order of Nature as from nature but as elevated by Grace If the World call upon us let us not regard it for it will withdraw us from the presence of God to please our selves or others by divertisements A Soul attracted to enjoy the presence of God has another rule Those who are not thus attracted nor have this enjoyment may do well to comply with their neighbours by charitable complacences The Fidelity which a Soul owes to God present requires of her not to charge her self with affairs but what are necessary and to manage them with the Spirit of indifferency aiming only to do Gods will which sometimes we meet with as well in ill as good successes She must be more taken up with God than those affairs knowing well no business is of greater importance than to conserve her union with God present It no less concerns her to be well resign'd to the Orders of Divine Providence to be content with Poverty with Miseries with Desolations never seeking deliverance upon natural motives but being pleas'd with abjection and humiliations to say with St. Paul Placeo mihi in infirmitatibus I am well pleas'd with my Infirmities Such a Soul will give her self up absolutely into the hands of God to let him work her into what form he pleases as soft wax and set what Impression he thinks best upon her receiving all with profound humility and if she be left naked she rests contented O how a Soul so dead to all Creatures is a pleasing Mansion for God to dwell in 'T is his delight to take there his habitation O how a Soul that finds God thus present with her is troubled to be obliged to quit the sweetness of his presence And when this is often makes life somewhat troublesom and she cries out O my God the well-beloved of my Soul when will you deliver me from this burdensom necessity This is the greatest of miseries to be depriv'd of all Creatures is no misery in comparison But to be depriv'd of you to enjoy whom I was created and without whom I cannot but be miserable makes me cry out Quando veniam apparebo ante faciem tuam O when shall I come to enjoy your presence It seems to me I am like a Traveller who sees a far off a high mountain and the way before him but being on foot he must sweat to get thither In like manner I have some prospect of Perfection and the obligations of a Soul longing after God but I cannot accomplish them However I have a desire and I stand in need of an abundance of Grace to mount to Perfection Holy Virgin Mother of God intercede for me that I may receive a participation of your Graces to enable and conduct me in the ways of God We must have a care that the Contentments we enjoy by this union with God present does not exclude a union with the Cross Contempts Poverty and Sufferings A strict tye to the Interiour of Jesus glorified does require also a strict conjunction to the Interiour of Jesus Crucified Those two unions go hand in hand here it being impossible to have part in the state of Jesus in Heaven without having part in the states of Jesus on Earth Let us take courage and love as yet rather to suffer than enjoy We have but this short life to suffer in but our enjoyment shall be to all Eternity CHAP. VI. That the presence of God in us puts us in a state of suffering and enjoying PErfection doth not consist in a general freedom from Interiour and Exteriour troubles Hitherto my weakness could not comprehend how a Soul at the same time might be happy
and miserable I had so little strength that my sufferings did stifle the enjoyment of Gods presence in me and the sensibility of them did eclipse the other And because I thought that this enjoyment of God could not be found but in a Soul exempt from all sorts of Sufferings when Sadness or Pains or Troubles did seize upon me I got free as soon as possible to regain my former state of enjoyment But I see my error for now these sufferings shall become the means to unite me more strictly to God I am content with them and will offer them a sacrifice to that hidden Majesty who is really present in my Soul For I conceive that the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Hypostatically united to the Word had God most intimately present remaining in this union in a state of enjoyment and suffering also As Man he offer'd up to the Divinity a continual Sacrifice of his Humiliations Poverty and Sufferings and the Divinity imparted to him a wonderful enjoyment of sweetness by his presence And in this manner God is yet glorified in a Soul He bestows upon her a profound Peace in the Superiour faculties by being sensible of the Divine Presence And in the mean time being mortified in the inferiour part she makes a perpetual homage of Sacrifice to God by offering up her Suffering to him A Soul in this state is an excellent Image of Jesus as both Traveller and Comprehensour God does not always manifest his presence to a Soul by abundance of Divine Irradiations but sometimes by a sensible Peacefulness which gently touches the heart and unites it to God In this the Intellectual Faculties do nothing but barely eye God and now and then the heart breaths forth some amorous Aspirations As O what a Happiness is it to have God present without a possibility of Separation What can I desire more then to have the possession of God O my God be my Portion and my Heritage for ever Sometimes also the Soul receives a certain prospect of the Grandeurs of God present which works in her Adorations and Humiliations Sometimes the Soul is mov'd with such sensible touches that she experimentally finds God present in her whereby she melts into affections respect and love and praises to the Divine Majesty and thereupon enjoys a Peace that passes our understanding Crosses and Sufferings may bring a Soul in time to a more union with God though not to the pleasures of enjoyment A union so much the more excellent by how much the more 't is imperceptible to the Soul who seeking her own satisfaction has some mixture of self-love in the sweets of enjoyment but cannot happen in the Crucified union which joyns the Soul to God in such a manner as is hardly perceptible That state is most perfect which brings us to the greatest Interiour Purity but this cannot take up a mansion in our heart without an entire death to all Creatures Now in the Crucified union the Soul being only attached to the will of God and not reflecting on her own operations and so taking no self-satisfaction from them she thinks all is lost and that she has no part in the love of God which is the only thing she passionately desires What great pity is it to love and not to know it Nevertheless this Soul that seems to her self in so sad a condition is a delightful Object in the eyes of God who sees in her the love only of his interests in that she is content with a total denudation and confessing she is not worthy of Gods Graces wherewith she beholds others adorned and admiring their beauty perceives not all this while what she is her self And this ignorance of her own state possessing her Spirit by a true sense of her own indignity she easily concludes that she is a miserable Creature And 't is no wonder if discouragment and sadness set upon a Soul in this disposition at least to affect the Inferiour part I clearly see that this union Crucified does advance us in the participation of the states of Christ Suffering which is the greatest advantage a Soul can pretend to in this Life of Mortality seeing this puts us in a condition of most expressing our love to God This great Truth well consider'd will wonderfully comfort a Soul that desires to be conform to the Image of Jesus Crucified The Crucified union carries Mortification to the marrow of the Soul making it die to whatsoever is not God seeing that she lives by the privation of all Creatures But the sensible union does nourish it self by reflections upon such a state which will indeed purifie a Soul from worldly affections however she will go on but slowly to the purity of Perfection if God be not very merciful unto her O my God how ought we to give up our selves wholly though in the dark to the conduct of your Divine Providence 'T is your wisdom to lead us through Obscurities to the end we may deny our own judgment which is no lover of Mortification O how this insensibility does purifie the operations of the Will which cannot relish in this state of denudation any thing but only your good pleasure The Soul in this Crucified union has the advantage to know how tenderly Jesus Christ loved her in his abandonments and humiliations He makes us to suffer this that we may know the greatness of that and this experimental knowledge discovers to us how much Jesus suffer'd in the state of his Humiliations and puts the Soul in a disposition to follow him in his Humiliations And seeing the greatness of the love of Jesus to us was most manifested by his Sufferings for us so our love to him is greatest by our Sufferings for him 'T is to be observ'd that the highest degree of this Crucified union is to have no sight of the excellency of this state which once being perceived begins to lessen our Holy Sufferings CHAP. VII That the Divine Presence makes us to love Prayer or Action as best pleases God I find the Life of Man to be poor and miserable we see not God unless surrounded with Clouds Our true Life consists in a Holy Converse with God present whereby a Soul enjoys a delightful repose and is fill'd with Peace unspeakable And being ravish'd with such lovely sweets does melt into enjoyments which transcend infinitely all earthly pleasures In this disposition a Soul does not relish the affairs of this World Ordinary Discourses though never so harmless are troublesome to her Yea the occasions to help our Neighbour though Good and Holy are not then convenient nor pleasing to her She is all for to be at the feet of Jesus with Mary Magdalen in a perfect repose and let Martha go about her business Notwithstanding God makes us to understand that sometimes we must go out from this in time presence and undertake Exteriour Actions in the Affairs of his Glory Ingredi egredi And this is the Life of a Holy Soul She goes out by
gives her a right to the riches of Glory for Truth hath said it Blessed are the Poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven O how a Soul which once hath beheld the Beauties of Holy Poverty is ready to follow Jesus poor and abject and conform her self to his example She finds her self freed of her Fetters which keep men Captives and Slaves to the World and it seems to her to be depriv'd of all Creatures is the greatest Treasure upon Earth She growes rich by her losses and when God will have her to possess Goods and Honours 't is yet with a disposition to quit them and possess God alone She therefore only keeps them by a pure dependance on the Divine Will without an esteem or love for them but loves in them solely the Will of God These were the impressions my first Prayer made in me In my second Prayer I continued to consider the poor and abject states of Jesus Christ God in his Eternal Decrees had a love for the humane ways of the Word Incarnate Those Souls who are favour'd with Illustrations from Heaven are strongly carried the same way discerning clearly that they can do nothing better upon Earth than to tread the footsteps of God himself To this end the Divine Wisdom elevates them above themselves and their natural inclinations to conduct them solely by the instincts of Grace whereby they make a glorious conquest over the weakness of Nature Self-love and Carnal Prudence which stand in the way to Christian Perfection and hinder us from following Jesus in his Abjections It highly concerns us to die daily to the World that we may attain to the Purity of Divine Love that is Possess and Love God alone The Pride of Adam will not die in us unless we be content to follow Jesus in his Abjections O my Soul let us fall in Love with this state of Jesus Christ which is little known to the World and take it for a Soveraign favour from Heaven to become so contemptible for Gods sake as to pass for one hardly good for any thing O Jesus how few Companions have you of your extreme Poverty Many Honour this Virtue in you but few practice it They must be Faithful Friends indeed who follow you in these ways so bitter and distastful to Flesh and Blood O Jesus be Merciful unto me and grant me this Fidelity that I may never forsake you in Life nor Death My third Prayer was taken up with a general view of the Humiliations of the Son of God for which I felt my Soul had much Love and Respect These Divine Humiliations did ravish me beyond comparison and I discover'd such wonderful Beauty in them that I could not be satisfied with beholding them I was deeply possess'd with a desire to conform my self to Jesus in his Humiliations and to spend my days in his imitation and I was much troubled I could not yet quit all things to live a poor abject retir'd life 'T is no less the work of Grace to bring us to relish the Abjections of Jesus Christ as to be taken with his Grandeurs His Grandeurs are incomprehensible but nothing in my eyes seem more great and rich and precious than his Humiliations The unspeakable Love that Jesus Christ has for Souls does manifest it self by making them partakers of his Humiliations Be content O my Soul with what part he shall give thee For it seems to me a punishment to abound with Riches and Honours whereby we become unlike to Jesus and march on in ways contrary to his practice and example When I reflect upon my sins I cannot sufficiently admire the great Graces God is pleas'd to vouchsafe me A strong argument to convince of his Infinite goodness and affords much matter of Humiliation considering how unworthy I am of the least favours But for me a poor wretch to have a call to solitude to converse only with God and his Holy Angels what a Mercy is this It came into my mind that Moses who had been a Captain of Thieves was afterwards a Holy Hermit and I had a special Devotion to him desiring him to help me by his Prayers O the wonderful effects of Grace that a Robber should become a Hermit I have a Devotion to Saints that have been great sinners methinks they are Powerful with God to help sinners to be converted This view of the extreme humiliations of Jesus yet continuing was the subject of my fourth Prayer And I found in my self great desires to begin a new kind of life to give my self absolutely to God as a Sacrifice by dying to all things of the world by a vow of Poverty But I being not yet in a condition to forsake my temporal affairs I resolv'd to make such a Vow when all things were settled and I took care that my affairs might be so regulated as to put me in a condition to comply with the call of God Having taken this resolution I found my heart inflamed with desires to be wholly for God and to conform my self as much as possible to Jesus in his humiliations Nature felt some afflicting resentment hereat and furnish'd me with arguments to divert me from it But the light of Grace scatter'd these thoughts and taught me to neglect the help of Creatures by casting my self wholly into the arms of his Providence O my Jesus the only love of my Soul though the most despised of men your Divine attracts and inspirations do so powerfully invite me to follow you in your ways of poverty that I shall never soon enough see the happy moment to engage my self thereto by a Vow never to be recalled Fourth Day Jesus the Fountain of Grace and Piety IN my first Prayer God gave me to see the infinite grandeurs of the Sacred Humanity united to the Divinity in the same person This ineffable union was the general and amorous object of my regard which wrought in my Soul a very great esteem and singular love and union with Jesus Christ This state of Jesus rejoyced my heart and I dwelt upon it my Soul being satisfied with wonderful contentment I had interiour assurances and very great certitudes of the Divinity of Jesus nothing in him seemed dark unto me though all surpassed the strength of reason I beheld him as the Principal of Grace and Glory This manifestation was in me by a Divine light and I found it filled my heart with most pleasing impressions The small conviction we have of the Divinity of Jesus makes us such cold Christians and that we walk so slowly in the ways of Grace For who firmly believes that Jesus is God will have a singular esteem of his Doctrine of his Counsels of his Proceedings and think it his Glory for to follow him The perfect belief of the Divinity of Jesus carries a Soul to real endeavours after perfection to despise the world to take up the Cross and follow Jesus in his abjections This is to be the Image of Jesus Christ
and Redeemer to lay out thy self upon the Creature and not correspond to his Inspirations who calls thee to himself What a horrible Infidelity would this be Let us not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we are Sealed to the day of Redemption The subject of my third Prayer was the admirable Oeconomy of the Incarnation in that by the excess of Love and Goodness God was made Man and Man became God I had profound veneration for the adorable Humanity absorpt in the Divinity and with an amorous confidence beheld the Divinity as it were annihilated in the Humanity which seem'd to me as a Tabernacle of Honour where God dwelt with Infinite Delight This Humanity also in a manner diviniz'd takes Infinite Delight in the Divinity from whence it receives wonderful Impressions of Annihilation to be poor abject and despis'd Crucified For after God was made man he inspir'd the Humanity with ardent desires and love of Sufferings for us Men and our Salvation O Jesus when you communicate your self to a Soul she receives impressions from you which incline her to a love of Contempts and Sufferings And when a Soul feels in her self the greatest propension to Sufferings and Self-denyal 't is then she most participates of your communications and has the greatest assurance of them For O good Jesus your Spirit is full of such impressions from the Divinity and the Soul where you reign as King does Infallibly receive the like impressions from your presence In my fourth Prayer I was touch'd with a great desire to leave this Mortal Life so full of Sin and Misery and depriv'd of the Beatifical Vision of God my Saviour Oh how irksom is it not to be in a capacity to contemplate at leasure this Infinite Beauty this Essence full of Infinite Perfections this only true Object of the Loves of Heaven and Earth O when shall I be deliver'd from this Prison of Flesh that I may behold Jesus the Light of my Eyes and Joy of my Heart Must I yet continue longer in this banishment What a cross is it to live here What a punishment is the delay Death how welcom wilt thou be in my embraces We must languish with Love after the Infinite Beauty of Jesus Christ and sigh to enjoy him O my Soul do not amuse thy self with Creatures love the Cross which is the high-way to Happiness Is it possible to believe in Jesus Christ and Love him and to languish with Desires to enjoy Him To stand much in fear of Death is a sign we have little desire to see the Infinite Beauties of God seeing Death only opens the gate of Paradice O Death thou art desirable come and put me in possession of the Object of my Love that I may live with Jesus who is the source of Life and the joy of the Blessed In the interim O my Soul let us have neither Love nor Life nor operation but what is in him and for him our Soveraign Happiness Vivit in me Christus Eighth Day Jesus our Light JEsus was present to me in my first Prayer as the Light of the World which discover'd to me such a Beauty in the Mysteries of our Religion with rayes of a new Light that I saw more then ever the vanity of the World and the strange Sottishness of such men who preferr'd the Darkness of Falsehood before the Light of Truth Insanias falsas The beams of this Light works wonders in a Soul for it leaves such impressions as bring her to know Truth in another manner then by the sole Light of Reason or Faith either If we be in the Closet of some great King in the dark we know well there be excellent pieces there we may know their number bigness and value of the Precious Stones the rareness of the Painting and what else we see not But when once the least light of day appears then we begin to have a view of all their Riches Beauties and Excellencies and the whole order of the Closet salutes our eyes and in admiration thereof we are taken with it in an extraordinary manner When it pleases God to give us a sight of his Divine Beauties discovering them to a Soul by the least Ray of his Heavenly Light then the Soul is wonderfully affected and being more then ever transported with admiration looks upon all things of the World as nothing Faith indeed gives us a certain assurance of her Objects but leaves in obscurity But one sole Ray from the Eyes of Jesus when he is pleas'd to dart it into a Soul doth confirm fortifie encourage and refresh her with Illustrations extraordinary and Soveraign consolations Accedite ad eum illuminamini We cannot approach to Jesus and not be enlightned I came to know in my second Prayer that when Jesus is pleas'd to manifest himself to a Soul he infuses a Light into her which gives her a marvellous Facility to believe the Verities of the Word Incarnate She has a certainty and as it were experience that his Thoughts his Words his Actions his Proceedings his Doctrine his Sufferings were Divine and brought a Soveraign Honour to the Divinity O Science of Jesus how art thou sweet and admirable All other knowledge in respect of thee is but ignorance and vanity I have by the great goodness of God had some little experience to know Jesus in this manner but I cannot express it The more this knowledge increases the less is it explicable The profound attention to Jesus does so take up my Spirit that it takes away my Speech It calls me from all Creatures to converse with him alone and draws me out of my self to be ravish'd with him O World how blind art thou not to see the Beauty of the Poor and abject states of Jesus His Doctrine and his Maxims are the only true Light All that thou hast O ignorant World seduced by the Prince of Darkness is but meer Darkness thy opinions thy imployments thy hopes thy fears thy desires thy entertainments are but Darkness and disorder thou stumblest almost at every step because thou walkest in Darkness out of which thou canst never get but by Jesus Christ For as the Sun is the principle of Corporal Light to the World so Christ the Sun of Righteousness is the source of all Spiritual Light and whom his Grace and Doctrine do not enlighten they wander in Darkness Ego sum Lux mundi qui sequitur me non ambulat in tenebris My third Prayer pass'd in continual astonishment in that I had so little known Jesus Christ and of that extreme blindness wherein I had liv'd At present I had almost a continual sight and a sweet and forceable inclination to regard this admirable Object so that I thought every moment lost which was not so imployed To behold him with amorous affections is a Cure for all my evils For when my Soul is afflicted with fears of loosing Gods favour or with experience of her Miseries or with difficulties about Perfection one
he ought nor lov'd with thankfulness He loves us so as to die for us and we make no reciprocal returns O the prodigious insensibility of men Is then Jesus Christ a stranger to us and not our God and Saviour Does the History of his holy Passion pass with us as a profane or indifferent thing Ought not the bloody Tragedy of Calvary fill all Christian hearts with love and sorrow For my part I could hide my head with shame that I have so little compassion and love for Jesus dying on the Cross for our Salvation O my Jesus I confess my fault in that I have so little known my infinite obligations to you But seeing your Grace discovers now to me more clear than heretofore what you are I will never more lose sight of you I will love nothing more than You and esteem nothing more than to do you honour You are my true Father my true Brother true Friend true King true Redeemer O how great a truth is it that you are all in all unto me O that I have been so long without knowing you aright O Jesus how Happy am I that I have found you O let me never so much loose my self as to forsake you For my fourth Prayer I stood at the Sepulcher of Jesus and seeing his precious Body dead and covered with Wounds I made this Epitaph Here lyes Love Yes yes here lyes Love indeed for his excessive Love to us brought him to this state and condition A state full of horror and wounds Blood and Infamy But a state well pleasing to God as satisfying his Justice for mans Redemption I embraced his precious Body and kiss'd his Sacred Wounds I adored Jesus in this state and said O my Soul we must either cease to Love Jesus or die with him seeing Love equalizes Lovers and makes them alike My Soul then chose to die with Jesus and after many sighs and desires to please her Beloved she died with Jesus never willing more to live a Natural and Humane Life but a Life Divine and Supernatural as that of Jesus And I made for her this Epitaph Here lyes a Soul dead of Love Behold in what consists the death of my Soul 't is to live no longer according to the natural Inclinations but according to the motions of Grace which are the Love of Poverty Contempt and Sufferings While these dispositions live in a Soul she is dead to Sensual desires and lives a Life of Grace a Life Supernatural Therefore for the future I will never hunt after Honours or Pleasures or Riches willingly and by Election but I will either heartily forsake them or if I use them it shall be upon Divine Motives for the good of my Neighbour or for pure necessity seeing That is the Will of God the surest rule of all our Actions Tenth Day Jesus risen from Death and Glorious IN my Morning Prayer I consider'd the Glory of Jesus Christ in the state of his triumphant Resurrection O Jesus how Glorious are you How well does this become you Verily 't was a strange state whither your Love had brought you A state of Misery Shame and Sorrow This was well for us Criminals but in no sort agreeing to you who are Innocence it self For what belongs to you is Majesty and Glory What joy did swell my heart to see Jesus Glorious My Tongue cannot express what my Heart feels This great Feast of the Resurrection is to be celebrated by all Creatures seeing 't is the day wherein Jesus appears as God O Feast of the Glory of Jesus O Feast of the Glory of Mary 'T was a Miracle she did not die of Sorrow at the Death of her Son and 't is another Miracle she did not die of Joy at his Glorious Resurrection O my heart be thou enlarged with Joy for 't is a general rule without exception that the Interest of the Creator is to be preferr'd before all Creatures And therefore O triumphant Jesus I more rejoyce that you are Glorious then that I hope to be Glorified with you Yea though I should never be raised your Glory does ravish me It glads me when I consider that damnation only concerns the Creature for the Interest of Jesus suffers not thereby seeing God is Glorified by the Reprobates as well as by the Saints in Glory 'T is also a certain rule that the Elect O Divine Jesus are Images of you and so necessarily must resemble you in your Sufferings if with you they will be Glorified 'T is a folly to think not to suffer here some way or other more or less seeing the way to Glory is by Sufferings O my Soul be thou united to Jesus Crucified and then thou shalt have part with Jesus Glorified To this end thou must love the Cross and desire of Jesus to die or suffer O World thy way is meer folly and nothing else In my second Prayer I was taken up with these words of Divine Jesus Ought not Christ first to suffer and so to enter into Glory I discover'd how all the Divine Perfections did wonderfully shine forth therein But above all the Wisdom of God doth ravish those hearts which contemplate the works of Grace and Mercy O Divine Wisdom how well is the Oeconomy of your Mysteries order'd to work our Salvation and bring us to Glory Every Mystery which I consider'd did raise a new Fire in my breast to inflame my affections with the Love of Jesus Sometimes they altogether did as with so many arrows pierce my heart and made me languish with Divine Love For seeing my self so Belov'd of good Jesus how could I but Love him again O Infinite Love of Jesus for whom shall I have a heart if not for thee O Love 't is for thee my heart is reserved Thy attracts are powerful enough do not redouble them so sweet and charming 't is enough my heart is for thee O Love except thou wilt have me die do not wound me any more Yet I will die willingly if thou wilt have it so on the Cross of Interiour and Exteriour Suffering that I may be conform to my Loving Saviour My third Prayer was a continuation of the Sentiments of the Love of Jesus I made use of the words of great St. Austin in his Confessions O my Jesus you have wounded my heart with the arrows of your Charity and I have devoted it to your Love Since that you have scatter'd my Darkness and made your self known unto me I have not forgot you Since I had the Happiness to know you I have imprinted you in my memory there I find you and I tast perfect Delights and receive extreme Joy and Contentment when I remember you My Soul feeling Divine Fires within her which did fill her with Pleasures I did sing extempore Canticles to my Beloved and though not methodical yet they better express'd her amorous languishings Though alone in my Chamber I spake of Jesus aloud as if I had had many Auditors to be partakers of my
condition of Interiour Captivity where the Soul lyes bound and ty'd up in darkness and prison For this condition Honoureth the Captivity of Jesus confined to the narrow compass of a little Host This Divine Lord of ours shuts himself up in this strait Prison for the Love of us The King of Glory is contracted under these little Species and so renders himself a Prisoner to man yes he renders himself in appearance his Slave giving all of himself to man and still Sacrificing himself to his Eternal Father for man He still suffers as I may say and dies for man and communicates to him all the merits of his precious Blood and Passion O Divine Captive captivate my heart so strongly that it may never be able to re-enter into its natural liberty But that wholly destroyed and annihilated it may never be capable of any other Life than that which is more than Humane Never enjoy any other liberty than that of your Children Let the World look upon them as slaves And load them with all Indignities as the out-cast of men in despite of all contempt they are still your Children Every time we approach to this Sacrament wherein Jesus Christ gives himself to us whole and entire we enter into a new obligation and contract to give up our selves wholly entirely to him and to endeavour to render all our Actions Divine Wherefore a Virtuous Soul ought not to say I have not had time enough to prepare my self before Communion for she ought to aim at no other thing in all the Actions of her Life than to receive this Bread of Life to the end she may live the Life of Jesus and keep her self continually in such dispositions as she sees him in in the Blessed Sacrament CHAP. III. To receive the Communion Worthily we must imitate those Actions which Jesus Christ practis'd when he Instituted it I remark Principally three Actions that Jesus Christ was pleas'd to do for our example when he instituted the Holy Sacrament And we cannot make a perfect Communion without the practice of them 1. He never performed any Exteriour Act of such a profound Humility In Truth he annihilated himself in the work of his Incarnation Both according to his Humane Nature which he deprived of its Natural Substance in an extraordinary way of conception And according to his Divinity which he plunged into the Abiss of Humane Miseries Yet he debased himself farther when he chose a Stable to be born in as the most Poor and Abject of Men Still more when he condescended to take the Badge of Sinners in his Circumcision But the lowest Abiss and center of annihilation was in the Chamber where he made the last Supper and where he did a thing that is the most humbling of all Humane Actions washing the Feet drying them kissing them with his adorable Lips and this even to the greatest of his Enemies and most wicked Miscreant that ever lived even to Judas O my Jesus this is too much debasing of your Grandeurs 't is too profound a Humiliation of your Majesty 'T is my duty who am a meer Nothing by the condition of my Being and become less than nothing by the enormity of my sins 't is my duty to annihilate my self under the feet of the vilest of Creatures What an intolerable Pride would it be in me if having seen the God of Majesty humbling himself so profoundly to give example and having heard him tell me so with his own mouth Exemplum dedi vobis ut vos it a faciatis I have given you an example that you should do so as you have seen me do What a Pride I say would it be in me to approach to your Communion without the Sentiments of the greatest Humility that I can possibly exhibit in any Action of my Life The second Action our Divine Master practiced when he instituted this great Sacrament was a sublime Prayer one of the most perfect as well as one of the last that he made in all his Life lifting up his Hands Eyes and Heart to God his Father by an Act of a most respectful Reverence And though he was himself his own Heaven where his Father reigned he recollects himself into this most Sacred Humanity as into a new Heaven and there addresses his Prayers to his Father who was present to him and his first Petition is Glorifie me O Father which is to say give me the joy of Humiliations and Opprobries of the Cross which I have so long desired and sighed after Teaching his Church to look upon Contempts and Crosses as her Glory and the greatest Honour she can desire upon Earth He demands also the Institution of this ineffable Mystery of the Holy Eucharist which he was going to make in obedience to his Eternal Will and Decree knowing that it was to be unto us a Fountain of Eternal Life and unto himself the beginning of a perpetual Death as continuing there in quality of a Sacrifice even to the consummation of the World It is my Duty therefore after his Example to prepare my Soul to receive his Divine Mysteries by the most pure and most perfect Prayer as God shall enlighten and inspire me The most assured is to apply ones self to him by a simple regard of Faith accompanied with Respect and Love considering him full of Graces full of Mercies and Blessings in this awful Mystery and that he comes unto us with all his riches and gives himself without any reserve even rendring himself in a manner passive for all the designs that he intends to accomplish within us whether he comes himself in person to operate there the marvellous effects of his Love This sole regard of Faith in its simplicity contains all the Perfections of other Acts. 'T is sufficient to have God by Regard unto him and by Love this is to attain to the end where the heart rests All other Exercises of Meditation and Practices of Interiour Virtues are but only means to arrive unto God when he is once found the Soul is to repose there and rest satisfied The third and most endearing Action that I admire in our Lord when he Instituted the Blessed Sacrament and when he made his Love appear in its greatest Lustre and in its most Ardent Fervour as well towards God the Father as towards Men even his Enemies When he comes into the World his Love is a rising Sun But when he comes to leave the World in the vigour of his Life and in the excess of Charity that he shew'd in dying for us he is a Sun in the heat of Noon day The Gospel tells us That having loved his own that were in the World he kindled the flames of his Charity and raised them to the highest point imaginable when he Instituted the Holy and adorable Sacrament In finem dilexit eos But that which is most inconceivable in it which the most of any thing demonstrates the eminence of his Charity is that he did not
with me after Communion are 1. Jesus entring into my Mouth vailed with the Sacramental Species I Sacrifice to him all my Being my Faculties and Operations in Homage to his Grandeur And after this Act I remain quite annihilated and passive to Jesus operating towards his Heavenly Father Love Respect and Praise towards my Self Death Annihilation and Alliance with his Divine Life 2. A second Disposition after the Holy Communion is that Jesus entring into me presently operates a streight Vnion At that time I have no sight of any that may annihilate me only at first he unites me to the state of his Humanity in its Poverty and Abjections the Contempt Labours and Sufferings of his Mortal Life and being hereby purified next he draws me to a Vnion with the state of his Divinity that is to say to render to his Eternal Father Love Praises and complacency in his Grandeurs 3. Another time after Holy Communion these great words of our Lord presented themselves to my mind to serve for my Entertainment Rogo Pater ut sint consummati in unum Father I beseech you that they may be consummated in one They disclose to me a little of that perfect Vnity or consummated Vnion that ought to be contracted between Jesus and us His Love requiring that our Souls should be confirmed in that Vnion by the frequent use of the Holy Communion and that they act continually according to the conditions of this Alliance from whence they fall by the least Infidelity and very much offend God who sees himself neglected and as it were contemned and post-poned to Creatures after he has called them to so perfect a Vnion and come expresly to work it in them Wherefore a perfect Vnion requires that our heart be united the most continually that possibly it can and that it tend incessantly to a Vnity of Love with Jesus Christ to a Vnity of Instinct of Inclinations of Desires and to a great conformity with the condition of his Mortal Life which is that whereby we are to walk during our present Life if we desire to arrive to the enjoyment of his Divine Life 4. Sometimes after Communicating I have had this representation in my mind that Jesus giving himself to me seemed to speak to me but without any kind of words For the sole manifestation of his Love imparted to the Soul is in lieu of speaking and the Soul answers by Acquiescence and Admiration that cannot be expressed In effect the Soul in this state does not understand any Interiour words after the manner that Mystique Divines explain them in their Writings But the lively and clear representation that is made to her of the state of Jesus in each Mystery without any thing else serves her for Discourse While she is in this condition it seems to her that Jesus says Hear Daughter and see and forget your People and the House of your Father to enter into an imitation of me To which words the Soul makes answer by acquiessing and without any noise in her Interiour she signifies her acceptance by a most efficatious consent She hears by seeing and Jesus speaks by manifesting himself Another while at the Communion I had a general view of the multitude of the great wonders that Jesus operates in these Mysteries of Faith in favour of Men with whom he takes his Delight This general view raised me to a high admiration which nevertheless terminated in a sense of a most profound acknowledgment of the Goodness of God seeing that all these wonders tend to no other end than to manifest unto us the intenseness of the Love he bears us and import that he expects Love for Love That is your only design my good Jesu in bestowing on me this Divine Food to bestow on me the Life of your Love but this Life may very well cause my Death O Love Love Love was all that I could then say being struck dumb with admiration CHAP. VI. Another Method of Thanksgiving after Communion I Find a great gust in the understanding of these words Fortis est ut mors dilectio Love is strong as Death Methinks I see them practically verified in the Holy Communion where I see that Love has reduced Jesus to the state of Death and of a Sacrifice immolated as Death reduced him upon Mount Calvary I consider that while his Love severs him from the Splendours of his Glory to unite himself to me it excites me at the same time to separate my self from Creatures from my Self and from all other things thereby to unite my self to him alone My Soul thoroughly penetrated with a desire to correspond with this design of her Beloved Jesus and clearly discerning that the love of Crosses and Contempt is necessary to dispose and prepare her for this great Favour she looks on them with affection and delight as so many Springs whence flows her Happiness Another wonder which sometimes my mind has been intent upon and received great Comfort from it is the Infinite desire that God has to Communicate himself and to lift us up to a full participation of his Divinity This view well penetrated into discovers so many wonders of the Love of God towards Men of the Felicities to which they are destined after the Miseries of this World of the Dignity of their Creation since the end for which they were made is to possess God of the Infinite desire God has to unite himself to them and of the perfect corresponding and complyance they are from thence oblig'd to especially such Souls as are chosen and in a particular manner called to this state that after all this it is scarce possible to resist such cogent impulses and attractives of God They make one desire to die to all things the better to prepare for so great a work of Love the hurries and business of the World is not to be any longer endured and one becomes passionately in Love with Solitude My Soul reflect diligently upon the Grace is given thee and correspond to the Love of God towards thee which thou art now so thoroughly acquainted with Thou hast no other business but this for thou must never betake thy self to any other imployment unless thou receive express orders from God for it The more one is estranged from Creatures the better a Soul is disposed to this Divine Union wherefore Disgraces ought to be our Felicity because they are the means to obtain it The Cross Purity of Love Union God alone These are the degrees that Grace leads us through and our Fidelity calls us to There is also another good method of giving Thanks after Communion which consists in abandoning and resigning our selves absolutely and without reserve to the power and dependance of Jesus Christ who coming into our hearts ought to be master there and command as Soveraign When it pleases him to continue with a Soul to entertain her and to unite her to him by a most delightful feeling of his presence we must not think that
true these are Crosses and Cruel Persecutions but if we bear them Faithfully with Love 't is a Martyrdom pleasing to God and profitable to us The Persecuting Tyrants tempted the Primitive Christians sometimes against their Faith sometimes against their Chastity which were Glorious Tryals of their Fidelity O how Blessed a thing is it to fight for that Faith and Fidelity we owe to God O what lovely Charms are there in this Martyrdom to those who behold them with the eye of Faith CHAP. V. Of Exteriour Crosses by the loss of Goods BEing in a Friends House who served God truly news was brought me that the Soldiers had ceas'd upon all my Goods at home and Blessed be God it little troubled me But rather I rejoyc'd and put my self into the Hands of God to do what he pleas'd with me preparing my Heart to undergo greater Losses contentedly I was much comforted by my Friend and I went home full of Joy and Cheerfulness accounting my self Happy that Divine Providence had brought me to Poverty and Abjection And I said with my self Courage my Soul our Blessed Saviour continues his Mercies Poverty and Abjection will afford us wings to flee to Perfection Behold now is the opportunity to make great Progress in Virtue if we be but Faithful It seem'd to me that at this time few Persons pityed me and yet they talk'd of my Affliction as no ordinary Tryal They blam'd me in some sort of Proceedings and after all I found my self an Abject and little considered I could never consent to the Councel of those who would have me either yield to anger or discontent For I always thought I ought not to part with that Meekness and Humility which becomes a Christian for the greatest Temporal loss that can happen to me I considered with my self that these little Crosses were hardly to be named with those that they suffer who are tormented with anguishes of Spirit or those who are Slaves under the Turk or such who are put to Death with grievous Tortures That which I suffer is nothing in comparison of those poor Creatures For I instead of being contristated by Suffering found a certain joy to possess my heart and a greater desire to suffer more Hereupon one told me That our Saviour sent me Crosses adorn'd with Flowers which though they took not away their heaviness yet their Odours did refresh and strengthen me to bear them This Persecution continuing I found my self always disposed to suffer it with great Interiour Peace and I kept my Soul from harbouring any thoughts of Bitterness against those who assisted my Plunderers I Saluted them with a Cordial Love although Nature had a repugnance to their Proceedings I beheld with contentment the Fall of our Family how our Friends did forsake us and some treat us very unworthily and yet I could not think it a misfortune but a signal favour from the hand of Providence And I did not complain but digest all this bitter Cup with Interiour joy O bona crux O good Cross The words of St. Andrew seem'd to me very true O how Crosses are good though full of Bitterness We ought to love what is good and make much of it In reality there 's an exquisite goodness in Sufferings and the Fruit of the Cross is wonderful Savorous For at last we shall find that the degrees of Glory shall be according to the measure of our Sufferings and degrees of Love I was then told some means how to get out of this Suffering condition Nature began to resent this with some joy but Grace repress'd it stifling this emotion of Nature that I might have no joy but in God alone and in the accomplishment of his good Pleasure CHAP. VI. Dispositions during Sickness where the Body suffer'd and the Soul rejoyced GOd has been pleas'd to make me enjoy during my Sickness an Interiour Peace so profound and great that I was altogether astonish'd at it considering my Miseries and former Transgressions I said within my self What is this that I find within me How comes it to pass that so miserable a Creature should be thus content and satisfied For my Soul was in a perfect calm from all her Passions feeling nothing but a pure and total union to the good pleasure of God and an absolute abandon of my self to the conduct of Divine Love It seemed to me that some dayes before this Sickness I was in a disposition of extraordinary Peace and Tranquility and one day after Dinner I was taken with a continual Feaver accompanied with much Head ach and Pains throughout all my Body But Divine Love methoughts continued his operations and set me all a flame with Holy Fires So that I often cryed out O Love O Love O Love And could say nothing else When I seem'd as a dying man my Friends weeping about me and every one saying I could hardly Recover my Soul beheld all this without being touched with any Sentiments of regret or tenderness for my Friends being wholly taken up with Divine Love which did so entirely unite me to the good Pleasure of God that methought I could never be seperated from it 'T was no part of my care to beg for my Life and one of my Friends proposing to send me some Reliques of Saints which had done Miraculous Cures I only thank'd him for though I have no small veneration for them yet I had no mind to make use of them for my Recovery but I would wholly put my self into the hands of Divine Love and leaving my self entirely to the conduct thereof whether for Life or Death for Time or Eternity In this extreme weakness of Body my Soul found her self Victorious and Triumphant to see that fall of Pain and her self full of Love and instead of being compassionate seem'd to me to smile at these Sufferings This was an extraordinary effect of Love that in this great weakness of Body my Soul kept up her strength and especially that the great Pains of my Head did not hinder her Interiour occupations This disposition of Love continued as long as my Sickness and I entertain'd my Friends with little consideration and I believe with too much talking fearing now to have discover'd then too much those Holy Fires that inflam'd my heart and that Self-love made me declare too freely my inward feelings My thoughts now make me suspect this defect but being inebriated with Love I said I know not what being like a drunken man that for a time forgets his Poverty and Miseries So in this disposition I forgot my Sins and extreme Frailties and cast my self into the Arms of Love that I might be united with my Well-beloved and enjoy his Reciprocal embraces I had a care to examine my conscience and confess my sins as a dying man and set in order my Temporal Affairs to pass to Eternity Finding my self not able to give much to the Poor it was a joy to me to die in Poverty and I was as well content to give
nothing as if I had been able to bestow much on pious uses The love of Jesus poor and despised did deeply pierce my heart and to satisfie my self therein I made them bring to me a poor Infant in whom methought I saw the Poverty of little Jesus and kissing his Hand I rendred what homage I could desiring to love poor Jesus to my last breath I acknowledge dear Jesus that I am very unworthy of your Divine states But alas must I die without entring effectually into the Poverty and Abjection of your Mortal Life At least O good Jesus I die with that Love and Respect I ought to have for them and be pleas'd to accept of that Conformity I desire to have for them I remember that Praying on Sunday in the Evening the day before I fell Sick at the Carmes Church where I was at Vespers our Blessed Saviour put these words into my mind Christo confixus sum Cruci I am fastned to Christ on the Cross Whereupon I felt an ardent desire to have not one moment of my Life without being able to say I am Crucified with Jesus Christ I think this Divine Love did then dispose me to be nailed on the Cross And in effect my Sickness beginning with a grievous Head-ach which made my eyes to be swoln with pain it came into my mind that I might on this occasion Honour the crowning of our Saviour with Thorns And it was some Contentment to me to have any conformity to this dolorous state of Jesus And as my pain did extend to all parts of my Body I imagin'd it had some little resemblance to the state of a Body Crucified Thus you have an account of my dispositions in this Sickness which I have done in obedience to the command imposed on me Perhaps they are explicated with too much advantage but the relation is true as to the substance Bless therefore with me the God of Mercies who has been pleas'd to be so bountiful to his most ungrateful Creature but it be-seem'd his Goodness to glorifie his Mercies by the greatness of my Miseries This then is my comfort and I cannot but declare his bounties to me and say Venite videte omnes qui timetis Deum quanta fecit Dominus animae meae Come all ye that fear God and see what great things he hath done for my Soul CHAP. VII Other Dispositions in the time of Sickness where both Body and Soul are on the Cross I Began to go out of that state wherein I had been more than five Weeks My corruptible Body did bring down the Soul as it were to nothing so that I had much ado either to know or love God of whom methought my Soul had little or no remembrance Seeing my self in this state of Incapacity I remain'd without any other prospect but of my own nothing and depth of my Miseries being amazed at the strange weakness of a Soul when left to her self This thought which wholly took up my Soul proceeded from a certain experience rather than any Light in the understanding 'Till God brought my Soul to this point she did not well know her own weakness but now she discover'd a thousand false Opinions and vain esteems she had of her self of her Lights Sentiments and Devotions She saw now she had some secret relyance on something besides God which she did not perceive till this state of privation What thus passed in me were the effects of a Natural Malady which nevertheless brought me to nothing and much humbled me For I was in so great a forgetfulness of God that you may be astonish'd at it and I would have hardly believ'd that a Soul having received so many sensible testimonies of the Love of God could ever have so long a privation of actual Love by reason of her former negligence and Infidelity What vast difference is there between my former and this Sickness In that my Soul was all inflamed with Divine Love luminous vigorous far above any disturbance from the Body In this she was cold and dark yea darkness it self feeble infirm depress'd and over-burden'd with mortal flesh We discover our Nothing and Frailties in Prayer but the Lights and Gusts that we receive therein hinder us from being sensible of them what makes us feel them to the quick must be some extraordinary affliction It seem'd to me that nothing was then prevalent in me but Sentiments of Impatience and inclinations to Peevishness but by the Grace of God I did not always consent to them though they often molested me I was somewhat encouraged by the Relation of the Happy Death of two Fathers of the Society who ended their days in the exercises of Charity after they had assisted the Souldiers many years attending them in their Maladies and dolorous Necessities to help them to live well and die Happily At last they died of the Plague and desiring passionately to suffer one of them gave great Stroaks with his Fist upon his Soar to endure something more for Jesu Christ whom they both lov'd with most ardent Affections 'T is said our Blessed Saviour appear'd to them at the point of Death to Crown them and make them Happy with his Presence after which they died Smiling full of Joy and Consolations This did much comfort me extremely rejoycing at their Happiness in that they died in the Service of the Hospital for Souldiers after they had continually endanger'd their Lives by exposing them to the Mouths of Musquets and Canons and a thousand Incommodities of Soul and Body by the cares and solicitudes incumbent on them O how glorious was their Death O the amiable Sufferings that brought them to it What are my little Sufferings in comparison of these What a shame is it for me to feel so much repugnance to endure them Alas I consider that there 's not a day in the year wherein the Church does not make particular Commemoration of many Martyrs who have had the zeal and courage to give up their Lives for Jesus Christ who died for them that they might Honour his Sufferings by the Torments they endured for his sake Some have been expos'd to be devour'd by Beasts others broke upon the Wheel others burned Alive others nailed to Crosses and all have been Miraculous by embracing with joy and cheerfulness the cruellest of Deaths that most barbarous Tyrants could invent to make them miserable O good Jesus I see all these go by the way of the Cross to come to the Perfection of Divine Love and I stay behind as one abandon'd and unworthy to suffer for you What can I then do O blessed Saviour For you have said That he who will not take up his Cross to follow you is not worthy to be your Disciple O Love Crucifie me Burn me Martyr me Si non per Martyrium carnis saltem per incendium cordis If not by Sacrificing my Body yet by Sacrificing my Heart And let my affectionate desire to suffer make my Life and
in Corporal Infirmities I have a mind to call my Hermitage the Hospital of the Incurable and only to lodge with me such poor Spiritual Christians who have a good will to heal their Imperfections but yet still fall into relapses At Paris there 's an Hospital for those who are Incurable in Body But mine shall be for such in Soul The end of the Sixth BOOK BOOK VII Of Ordinary Prayer and Contemplation CHAP. I. What Esteem we ought to have for Prayer WE must have a great care not to place Perfection where it is not for this will much retard us in the path of Virtue We must not therefore have too great an esteem for the Unitive Mystick way not but that it is good and very good for a Soul that God conducts to Perfection by such extraordinary Elevations But we may safely believe the Unitive Practical way to be as excellent and more necessary seeing 't is nothing else but the practice of a Christian Life and the other consists in Elevations and Unions of Spirit with God by Contemplation 'T is observable that our Blessed Saviour says Whosoever will come after me must take up his Cross and follow me He says not he must be Elevated in Prayer but he must take up his Cross that is he must practice the Maxims of the Gospel Happy then are those who suffer although they be not elevated in Spirit And those who are elevated in Spirit are not happy but inasmuch as they are conform to Jesus Christ Crucified and by such Unions are more disposed to the Cross and Sufferings The Crucified Life is in a manner the end of the Mystick Life whose Gusts and Lights conduce to fortifie the Soul to carry her Cross the better St. Teresa says That 't is a good sign after a Soul has been in an extasie if she find in her self extraordinary desires to suffer in that she cannot return from those Holy Communications with God but well instructed For the Perfection of Love here consists in Suffering for the Love of Jesus and not enjoying him Let us not complain then if we be not elevated by Mystick Unions but rather rejoyce too see our poor Soul in Prayer among the Thorns of dryness and aridities than the Roses of a sweet and gustful Devotion Interiour as well as Exteriour Sufferings must be pleasing to us seeing a true Christian ought to Glory in nothing but the Cross of Christ But that did extend it self as well to his Soul as Body for his Divine Soul was deprived of sensible succours in this Dereliction on the Cross and we must Love to be conform to him and rest content Happy are those Souls that love Sufferings rather than Enjoyments and complain of nothing sooner than not to suffer A Soul which receives no great Light from God in Prayer but is left in darkness and Interiour Sufferings carries in reality a heavy Cross But a Soul illuminated in Prayer by illustrations from Heaven endures another Cross more intime and burdensom For this Light discovering to her the great merit of pure Suffering 't is a pain to her not to suffer and so she remains without all sort of consolation seeing the state of Light and Sweetness appear to her not preferrable to that of obscurity And so tasting of those Sweets they are not now so pleasant having discover'd that the bitterness of Aridities is more acceptable to a Soul that desires nothing but the pure Love of Jesus Christ Crucified and that thereby may be more firmly united to her Saviour When I am in Darkness and Aridities I stand in need of an indifferency in every state that I may bear with Patience my Abjection and Poverty I have more need of Indifferency when my Soul is enlightned which irradiations God vouchsafes us to strengthen our weakness and not as I have thought heretofore to advance us in the practice of Divine Love which is more eminent in the contrary condition I have stood in need of comfort in my Sufferings and I have stood more in need of it in a state of Joy and Sweetness I said heretofore when I abounded with Consolations that I should never suffer again At present I think I shall suffer as long as I live seeing I find Crosses in every state and I frame my self to an Indifferency to Gods will and Pleasure in his dealings with me Heretofore inebriated with Consolations I said Fulcite me floribus stipate me malis quia amore langueo Surround me with Flowers and Aples to augment my Comforts and increase my Love But now I say surround me with Crosses Contempts and Sufferings for languishing with Love I desire to Love Jesus better than ever 'T is a wonderful thing that I should be more poor now then when I was deprived of all Consolation I will not then too greedily seek after Light and Sweetness seeing methinks they make me poorer I stand amaz'd to see a Soul to find her self desolate by Consolation In Desolations the Inferiour part of the Soul suffers but in Consolations the Superiour part and more elevated but little known I perceive that the Supreme part of the Soul cannot be content and comforted but by the Death of the sensual part and a seperation from all inordinate Affections to the Creature I should therefore rather desire a state of Desolation and Fidelity therein than all the Delicious gusts of Prayer though so elevated as to bring the Soul to ravishing extasies CHAP. II. Of the different sorts of Mental Prayer I Find a comparison which explicates very well the difference of ordinary Prayer and Prayer Passive A man may see well enough the Furniture of a chamber and the riches of a Cabinet by striking Fire and lighting a Candle to view the particulars Or by the lighting of the Sun when we have nothing to do but to open our eyes to behold those Objects Meditation much resembles the first way of seeing with a Candle Perfect Contemplation the second way of seeing by the Sun because 't is done not only without labour but all at once and with delight When the Light of the Sun fails us we must supply it with a Lamp or Candle When God does not Communicate himself by Contemplation we must seek after him by Meditation and be content with Gods Gifts whatever they be with Peace and Humility When God withdraws his Passive Light 't is in vain to strive to retain it We must acquiess in his Pleasure 'till it return again as he thinks good If God please to leave us in darkness without Sun or Candle 't is an opportunity to practice Humility and Patience for we must desire nothing but God alone and in what manner he thinks best Let a Soul be never so perfect she is never continually elevated to a high degree of Contemplation but more or less as it pleases God she must descend to the practice of Virtue and exercises of Charity or to discursive Meditation by Applications to God in the
obscurity of Faith She must therefore keep her self in an Indifferency rising and falling according to the conduct of Gods Holy Spirit Always esteeming her self unworthy of the least Grace and never pretend by forcing her Spirits to the extraordinary favours of high Contemplation But when she has a call to such elevations in Prayer the way to arrive thither is by a perfect death to all things and a Faithful imitation of Jesus Christ in his Crucified states of Abjection and Poverty with a Love of Solitude as much as our condition will permit There 's a great deal of difference between that Light and Fervour which is imparted to a Soul in the elevations of passive Prayer and that Light which is procured by the ordinary Grace of Meditation That is more in time and piercing and full of Heavenly Benedictions This however suffices to acquire Virtues and serve God in the state of our Vocation 'T is our duty to attend to our present condition with Peace and Humility and submission to the Divine Will and let God alone to order as he pleases the time of his Visits and our manner of Prayer Sometimes this will be by simple Thoughts sometimes by Discourse sometimes by Faith alone and sometimes by passive Illuminations But whatever is given us we must receive from the hand of the Divine Goodness with great respect and Thankfulness acknowledging our selves unworthy of the least good Thought That which a Soul ought to do both in and out of Prayer is to be very attentive to Gods Holy Inspirations and follow them with Courage and Fidelity If she find that God elevates her to extraordinary Contemplation let her yield to those Divine impressions If she be kept in an ordinary way let her there abide If she be left in Aridities let her also sit down without complaining The great secret of a Spiritual Life is for a Soul to purifie her self so as to comply with the motions of God who is our Alpha and Omega our Origen and final end There are things sufficiently declared as the Commandments of God and the Church the Duties we owe to Obedience Charity or Necessity There 's no need to expect immediate Light from God for the performance of these things But only in such which are neither commanded nor forbidden And in these great Purity of Soul is necessary to discern the motions of Grace for fear we be deceiv'd by our own imaginations Those Saints who by the Impulses of Gods Holy Spirit have writ Spiritual Treatises to direct Interiour Christians in the wayes of God oftentimes affect us with their Thoughts and Sentiments because they Pray in Heaven for this Blessing on their labours on Earth and therefore t is Beneficial to read their Books to advance our Devotion But do what we can we shall never know what that Prayer is by what those Books write of it unless by the practice and Light of the same Prayer We know well enough in general that Prayer is the source of all Virtue in the Soul who leaves that off falls into Luke-warmness and Imperfections Prayer is a Holy Fire that warms the Heart and Affections which without it must of necessity grow cold in Devotion In Health or Sickness Joy or Sorrow we must always Pray except we have a mind to fall from Grace to our utter ruin CHAP. III. That we ought to be indifferent to what manner of Prayer God is pleased to give us WE ought to shun two Extreams equally vitious The one is to covet more Grace and Perfection than God intends us so as to be troubled and disgusted to see others more elevated in Gifts of Prayer than our selves The other is not to co-operate faithfully with the Grace vouchsaf'd us either for want of Courage in the Difficulties that occur in the practice of Virtue or of Attention to observe the Motions of Grace or being observed by too easily diverting our selves to other matters and so neglecting the Mercies of God When a Soul is well purified and hath experience of the Impulses of Grace in her and can distinguish them from the motions of Nature she must give free ingress to the rayes of this Light from Heaven that she may be throughly illuminated and warm'd in her Devotions For to do otherwise under a pretence of Humility and fear of deception is not to yield to the Conduct of God's Spirit who inspires when and whom he pleases 'T is then our Duty to be entirely passive that God may fully work his Will in us When these Divine Illuminations are withdrawn from a Soul for the Glory of God and her good and so left in darkness or when her own Imperfections have made her not so capable of supernatural Lights she must rest contented with these privations till it pleases the Sun of Righteousness to shine upon her A purified Soul is satisfied and resign'd on such occasions because God only is her joy and not his gifts which he by his infinite Goodness communicates to her when he pleases And this is the reason that she loves not her inward peace and joy when she is deprived of heavenly Irradiations and Gifts in Prayer He who gives himself up to his Prince for his sole interest and satisfaction without seeking his own peculiar concerns and contentment does not much matter what Service he renders and what Rewards he receives provided his Prince be well pleased and satisfied If he keep him near his person to caress him he is content not that he is caressed but because it is his Princes pleasure If he imploy him afar off in troublesome Affairs he is content not to be so far from his Person and in a hazardous Employment but because this is the Pleasure of his Prince whose Content he only had an eye to in giving himself up unto his Service This is the true case of a Soul that desires to serve God purely for the Love of God If God caress her in Prayer with Visits full of Sweetness she is content because this is his Pleasure if he affords not his Presence but leaves her in Darkness she is content because 't is the good pleasure of God If God call her to the exercises of Charity in a life more active and laborious than the contemplative she is content because this is the good pleasure of God which is the only thing she seeks and desires in his Service This indifferency disposes a Soul to receive great Graces for by this means she sometimes arrives to a total oblivion of her self and all creatures without any reflection on her own Interests Temporal or Eternal haveing nothing in her eye but the good pleasure of God and desiring him alone insomuch that if any thing of self creep in at any time as soon as she discovers it 't is distasteful to her This is a state of great Nakedness and entire Mortification and a perfect disposition to most sublime Prayer whether God elevates a Soul whom he sees ready to submit
hath to Jesus the Soul loosing the sight thereof falls into distraction being carried insensibly to a different matter But when she considers Poverty as inshrin'd in the heart of Jesus and practis'd by him she is taken up with Jesus which is much better And so this digression proves profitable and she gains by this loss 'T is the same when we meditate on any Perfection of God and falling from our first subject we are happily lost in the depths of the Divinity where we find no Love but of God himself O Happy loss There 's no knowledge more necessary for us than of our Miseries and Imperfections because that or nothing will well ground us in Humility without which we cannot raise Virtues to any height in a Spiritual Life We may get this knowledge two manner of ways Either directly by considering them in themselves Vir videns paupertatem meam Or by considering the Divine Perfections in the Light whereof by reflection we discover our own Miseries and Imperfections The first manner is somewhat like a Winters-day wherein we feel nothing but Cold and see nothing but Sterility yet it affords Light enough to work in us a low esteem of our selves But this Humility oftentimes causes in the Soul disquiet dependency and discouragement The other manner resembles a fair Summers-day which is more Warm and Lightsome and full of Refreshment The sight of our Miseries by this way is more advantagious and begets in us a more generous Humility and fuller of confidence in God For the view of the Divine Perfections which is the chief and direct work of the Soul raises in her a Holy Fire which inflames her Affections towards God in the midst of her Miseries Behold now the reason why 't is a great secret in a Spiritual Life to behold all things of God who is an Infinite Light and never to forsake him because in him and by him we can best know and do our Duty After that a Soul is habituated to march through the ways of Faith and Purity she gets so great a Facility to converse with God that 't is a trouble to her to descend to Creatures knowing by experience that he only is her center where she finds true repose and her only Light to conduct her to Happiness The Soul of Jesus Christ our Grand Exemplar did not only abide in God by Apostatical Union but all his Thoughts and Affections were absorpt in the Divinity which replenish'd this admirable Creature with Grace Light and Truth for the Execution of the Eternal Decrees of his Heavenly Father for the Redemption of Man He finish'd the Mysteries of his Mortal Life but still conversing with God and plung'd in the Divinity wherein he beheld what he came to do upon Earth Let us follow his example that we may receive from God a Light to conduct us which ordinarily is communicated to us in Prayer Accedite ad eum illuminamini Draw near to God and ye shall be Enlightned CHAP. XII Of Passive Prayer PAssive Prayer is after this manner We take a view of God in his Perfections or of Jesus in his states or of some Christian Verity by the Light of Faith and then the Soul abides in a perfect repose gently receiving the Divine Impressions which enter with so much Conviction that she is presently warm'd and inflam'd with all sorts of Vertues And though she does not distinctly practise their interiour acts yet she feels a delightful Joy by the sweetness of those impressions and finds her self well aispos'd to be faithful to them on all occasions In Meditation God works with us but we in a manner do all in passive Prayer we cooperate with God but in a manner the whole work is his We must not easily believe that we are in a state of passive Prayer To be disposed thereto requires great Purity and long Practice of Prayer with the advice of a good Director and in the interim to exercise our selves in Meditation A Soul elevated to the state of passive Prayer finds her self united to God without any Labour of her own and receives from him many Lights and Illustrations Desires and Affections according to his various Workings in her Then the Soul purely adheres to Grace holding close to the Infusions of God's holy Spirit and follows the Divine Motions by the Annihilations of her proper Operations When she is thus passive and dead to her self her state changes not although her ordinary dispositions may alter for then she receives with equal Contentment from the hand of God Darkness as Light Aridities as Comforts Poverty as Abundance in a firm Resolution to will nothing but what pleases God with an entire Indifferency and a perfect Death to her own Operations 'T is observable in this passive state that the Soul sometimes remains in Union with God and Contemplation of his Divine Perfections keeping her self in a profound Repose as it were without Action and at other times she acts by her own Faculties as it pleases God to excite her to these Acts her only business being to submit perfectly to the Motions of Grace and she acting as Grace excites her does not leave her state of Passivity seeing she only moves her self according to the Motions of God's Spirit A Soul cannot arrive to this passive state unless she be dead to her self unless she be advanced in Virtue unless her Interiour Peace be great and stable unless her Prayer be in a manner continual and unless she be purifyed from all voluntary Defects For how can God in such a gracious manner visit a Soul which is free from Disquiet and Ordinary Imperfections How can she hear the Voice of God amongst the Noise of Creatures if they live in her with any Affection To put our selves into the hands of God to do with us what he pleases in our Addresses to him we must be exactly attentive to his Orders which he will interiourly make known to us either by Illustrations in our Understanding or Instincts and Motions in our Will Perfect Purity of Heart requires that the Soul have no Eye to her own Interest but solely to do the Will of God Her principal Care must only be to regard him to love and serve him without curiously examining his Gifts and Graces she knows well enough that in passive Prayer there are many wayes to come to God and divers manners to sacrifice our selves to Divine Love Some spend themselves in doing Good to their Neighbour others in Suffering for their Faith by the Cruelty of Tyrants some by Mortifications and Penances others by Ardours of Love in Prayer The Soul must be indifferent to be sacrific'd by Love what way best pleases God the Divine will being the sole Rule of her Choice and not the Beauty or Perfection of the State so that when she knows it is God's Will a less elevated Condition is pleasing to her God is our Father and Directour operating in us in different manners Sometimes he infuses more
Light into the Understanding sometimes more Love into the Will so that one Faculty seems to be lost in the other The Soul must be content with either as God pleases and cease her own Operations to be passive to the Actings of God in her by his gracious Motions A great deal of Work is done for us by this means in a little time towards Christian Perfection The Soul that is in this state must carefully shun two things the Activity of her own Spirit and the Impurity of her Affection As for the first our Spirit is very unwilling to dy to it self but will be acting and discoursing we loving much our own Operations so that we have much ado to conquer our selves that we may enter into an entire Passivity as to be only susceptible of Divine Motions The long Habitudes of acting with Liberty hinders this Annihilation but we must fight for the Victory and Grace at last will make it easy As for the second the Impurity of Affection we must be perfectly dead to whatsoever is not God so as to seek nothing but him and his good Pleasure without any mixture of Self-interests The infinite Love of God to us obliges us to be faithful to him and the Love we ought to have for our own good obliges us to spare no pains to attain to Perfection CHAP. XIII Of Pure and Perfect Prayer IT much disposes a Soul to attain to pure and perfect Prayer to give her self up into the hands of God with an entire Submission to his holy Will touching this Exercise to bestow upon her what state he pleases A Soul that finds Attracts from God to depend on his Providence the Matter and Manner of her Prayer must receive thankfully what comes from God whether it be Contemplatio or Meditation be it with Delight or Difficulty with Sweetness or Aridities A Soul so purely united to the Divine Will and dead to all things else possesses God in a wonderful manner not only in Consolations but Interiour Crosses Purity of Prayer as the present Light I have tells me consists in a simple View of God by the Light of Faith without Discourse or Imagination Reason and Imagination have their part in Meditation but not in pure Prayer It seems to me that the Soul ought to be absorpt in God and remain there in repose being dead as it were to her own Operations This Repose in God is by Knowledge and Love whereof sometimes this sometimes that is more abundant and affects the Soul as God pleases When God elevates a Soul above ordinary Prayer to converse with him alone she must make it her business to comply with him The Virtues and Dispositions which another time would be the Life of the Soul are not now when she must live no Life but the Life of God that is of his sole Knowledge and Love without any Reflection on her self God then takes the Care himself of such a Soul furnishing her with all necessary Dispositions Think on me and I will think on thee said Jesus Christ to St. Catherine In Prayer God infuses into her practical Lights of no long Durance but efficacious and out of Prayer she receives the same to be applyed to the Practice of most excellent Virtues on all occasions Pure and Perfect Prayer does not consist in Gusts of Devotion but in the supreme part of the Spirit in a peculiar manner that is ineffable For this supreme Region of the Soul is the sacred Temple where God is pleas'd to dwell where she feels and tasts a Sweetness above all created Entities The Soul conducted by Faith and attracted by these Divine Perfumes finds God in this his Sanctuary and converses with him with such a Familiarity as astonishes the Angels to behold it 'T is here where she makes pure Prayer seeing there 's nothing but God and the Soul without any Creature to interrupt this sacred Interview God working all that passes by Himself without Representations or Discourses or Gusts of Devotion This supreme part of the Soul being not capable of sensible Objects God alone takes Possession thereof communicating his Illustrations and Sentiments which are necessary for a pure Union with him Perfect Prayer then is a certain experimental Manifestation which God gives of Himself of his Goodness Peace and Sweetness An admirable Gift that is not imparted but to the purest Souls and ordinarily is but of small Continuance But the Condition of Mortality will not permit of more where we must live in Humility Patience and Sufferings The Soul returning from these Divine Embraces carries away with her great Love and a high Esteem of God a profound Knowledge of her own Imperfections and finds her self altogether disposed to act and suffer and practise pure Virtues on all occasions Few persons arrive to this Purity of perfect Prayer because few make themselves susceptible of those Divine Motions by an entire Annihilation of their own Powers These great Favours would be more frequently bestow'd if we had Hearts prepared to recive them Favours which are of more worth than the whole World and cannot be known but by Experience For my part I know nothing I only have heard say that in this pure and perfect Prayer there are admirable Unions most intimate Embraces Ardours of Love so Pure as may almost compare with the Flames of Seraphims We come to a perfect Union with God by a perfect Denudation of all Creatures and this Denudation is acquir'd by continual Mortification and sometimes by Divine Infusion We must therefore pray much and dye daily to our selves and all Creatures Since that Original Sin hath depraved our Nature we cannot live a Life of Grace without dying a continual Death When God acts with us in the Practice of Mortification we shall soon dye to our selves for he breaks us all to pieces on a sudden with wonderful Contrition of Heart and kills our Corruptions unknown to us so that a Soul dies more in one day by the loving Stroaks of his powerful Hand than she would in some years by ordinary Mortifications Let us therefore adore this Divine and loving Hand which kills us to make us live and never complain but of the little Returns we make for his gracious Favours The Loss of Goods of Friends of Honours of Consolations do much conduce to bring a Soul to this living Death for commonly we quit such allurement when we lose the materials of those Fetters In this Divine Exercise the Soul is wholly taken up with God without diverting her Thoughts on any other Object And though then to reflect on the effects of Prayer would be a kind of Distraction yet without her thinking God leaves powerful Impressions in her and pregnant Dispositions to practise great Virtues and above all a love of the Cross and Humiliations seeing he cannot possibly please God more than by suffering for Him CHAP. XIV Of the Hungring of the Soul after GOD and of her being Satiated with Him I Sometimes find my self in
produce in her admirable effects To have tasted of them once or twice is sufficient to make her rich by infusing into her Understanding a certitude of the Mysteries of our holy Faith and inflaming the Will with ardent and solid affections to practise Virtue And thus she knows more of God in a Moment than before she did in many Months By these extraordinary Graces a Soul is more convinc'd and dispos'd to suffer Contempt and Poverty and leave all things to follow Christ than by a thousand discursive Meditations However God does not cease to communicate these effects by other wayes as by spiritual Lectures holy Conferences Meditations c. But when God is pleas'd to work all by himself in a Soul he does much for her in a little time One of the principal Virtues that this state imprints in the Soul is To draw her to God and keep her with him so that she 's more in Him than her self Divine Love being a weight that alwayes carries her to her Well-beloved Amor meus pondus meum If a great Prince should send some magnificent Present to one of his poor Subjects this would give him more Knowledge of his Prince's Royal Grandeurs and Bounty than to send him all the Oratours of his Realm to set forth his Greatness by their Eloquence So a Soul knows more of God by the aforesaid Favours than by the large Discourses of Famous Preachers These extraordinary Favours are not necessary to Salvation nor yet to Perfection but very advantagious to confirm us in Grace For these more special Communications work in the Soul this admirable Repose and sweet Calmness to dispose her for the Receipt of great Graces which bring her to a more intimate Union wherein she sucks from the Bosom of the Divinity a Sweetness ineffable Strengthening Purifying and Comforting When the Soul is not in this Quiet let her do what she can no endeavours of her can procure it If God sends it let us receive it if he send it not we must be patient and prepare our selves thereto by the exercise of Mortificacation and pure Virtue according to the Grace betstow'd upon us Having been in this Prayer of Quiet many days it seem'd to me to be taken from me for contesting a little with my Friend to perswade him to prevent another with a charitable courtesie O my God how nice and delicate a thing is Grace and the greater the Grace it is the more delicate I learn by this Substraction how poor a thing a Creature is how unable we are of our selves to retain Your Graces and to see that this also proceeds from Grace I will hereafter make it my work to love pure Virtue and practise perfect Mortification CHAP. XVII Of the intimate Vnion of the Love of the Soul with God in Prayer THe wonderful Secrets of this Disposition of the Soul in Prayer can hardly be expressed only we may call it The Prayer of Vnity of Love because herein the Will feels no other Love in her Affections than that which God has for Himself One only Love seems sufficient for God and the loving Soul it being enough for her to adhere to him with great Simplicity and Unity with this only Love which God has for his infinite Beauties and Perfections The particular Love of the Soul is absorpt like a Drop of Water in the infinite Ocean of his Love by a Union inexplicable and being so lost is found more perfect as a Spark of Fire in a little Coal cast into a Furnace gives a heat infinitely greater than what it had of it self alone It seems to the Soul that she does not love but God loves himself in her and in this manner her Will having such Impressions of the Divine Love has no other Sentiments nor Interiour Dispositions than those which God has for Himself When she loves God in this manner as he loves Himself she also hates Sin in the same manner as God hates it by this ineffable Union In this state of Prayer the Soul receives wonderful Discoveries of the admirable Wisdom of God in his Proceedings about the Redemption of Mankind by the Life and Death of his Son so full of Sufferings and Abjection God loving Himself cannot but love the Cross which satisfied his Justice and the Soul cannot but have a Will to suffer seeing she is in the Unity of Love with God which Unity must needs elevate the Soul above Nature And as the Soul of Jesus wholly absorpt in the Love of his Father did rejoyce in his Sufferings and Humiliations so if we be in the Unity of this Love Contempts and Mortifications Dolours and Death it self will be lovely and desireable though quite contrary to our Natural Inclinations This Vnity of Love does so powerfully constrain us to love Sufferings that I make little difference between Love and the Cross and I see so clearly that all the Counsels of Jesus Christ do so wonderfully advance the Purity of Love that no natural Aversion shall deterr me from them I find in my Heart a tacit Consent of Love to abandon my self to Divine Providence and not to disquiet my self about Perfection For I must pacify all the Emotions of my Heart as well good as bad to be in so profound a Peace as to attain this Union When God is pleased to communicate to a Soul this Purity of Love he disposes her to so great a Favour by some Sufferings Crosses and Humiliations He that knows the Riches of true Love knows these also for they are inseparable so that he who will not suffer cannot arrive to Purity of Love My Prayer then tends to unite me intimately and continually to the only Love wherewith God loves himself and my Soul has at present Attracts to nothing else In this Love it seems to her she finds the Practice of all Virtues in a more excellent manner than in themselves I know very well that Love is a weight that continually carries the Soul towards her beloved Object and my Will bending always towards God it moves thither by a longing Inclination full of Love and Sweetness It seems to me that my Understanding herein does not with its Lights assist my Will for I find my Affections all on fire and panting after God without any previous Illustrations I found me thought Divine Love immediately working on my heart by such most secret Touches as put me in a state of perfect Union I find nothing to explicate this better than a Needle touched by the Adamant which then turns continually by a secret Virtue to the Pole and is unquiet till there it fix Thus it stands with my Soul being touched I know not how by Divine Love having no repose but by fixing on God and parting with all Creatures she gently tends to her Divine Center without any Violence being sweetly attracted to a perfect Union My Understanding in this state sees well enough what passes in my Will and Affections but it seems to me to contribute
nothing to work this amourous Tendency towards God Not but that sometimes it presents some excellent Truths to quicken Love but yet that Truth was there without it I admire that after the Visits of Friends I alwayes find my will converted to God the only center of my Soul and I know not how this amourous Inclination is entertained and preserved in me I find by Experience that in this state my Soul is well dispos'd to practise all sorts of Virtues though she make thereof no formal Resolution After the Exercise of this Prayer the Soul is extreamly in love with Mortification and Self-denyal desiring nothing but God alone She understands also that she cannot persevere in this happy state without a constant Love of the Cross of which she daily becomes more amorous I begin this Exercise of Prayer without any other Preparation than Purity of heart as soon as I find my self in such a Disposition for God loving the Soul does sometimes prevent her before she perceives it I continue herein me thinks without any Industry or Trouble provided my Soul be but amorous of perfect Purity and faithful to the Practice of Mortification If I deeeive not my self God has been pleas'd to vouchsafe me this Mercy and it concerns me to be thankful and desire the Divine Goodness to assist me with his Grace that my Infidelities may not deprive me of this State and Favour CHAP. XVIII Of Interiour Silence where God speaks and is heard WE can never arrive to this Happy state of Interiour Silence where are the most secret Communications between God and the Soul except we pass through three tryals wherein we find much trouble and bitterness The first is the Death of the Exteriour Senses whereby all Sensible Objects become in a manner distastful to the Soul for as long as she does amuse her self with any Sensual Delights she can never arise to this Elevation This general Mortification is so difficult that the greatest part of Devotes suffer themselves to be conquer'd herein and pass no further The second is the Annihilation of the workings of their Interiour Senses wherein we have such difficulties to conquer that unless God who conducts Souls by his Divine Motions does strengthen them in this Combat and bring about this Interiour death by the secret workings of his Grace they will quickly loose courage in this attempt The third tryal is yet more laborious for we must mortifie the operations of our Spiritual Faculties the Memory Understanding and Will then which nothing is more difficult 'T is a long time before the Soul can understand how this must be done and longer before she can bring it about And except God be pleas'd to withdraw from the Soul those helps she receives from her own Lights and Affections she will never compass it In this Combat the Soul meets with a thousand Temptations As that we do but loose our time that 't is no better than pure idleness and much hinderance sometimes from Directors who having no experience of this way cannot understand it much less approve it Happy is the Soul that meets with a Director to strenghthen and encourage her in the difficulties of this passage otherwise she will never arrive to this Sacred Silence unless by some extraordinary Grace and Favour The Soul then thus dead and annihilated enters into this Sacred Silence the beginnings whereof are somewhat bitter though with a mixture of sweetness by a certain experience of the presence of God in the Soul Which being elevated above all natural Lights to behold God by the single Light of Faith is assisted by another Light that seems to participate of Faith and Glory For it has something of the Rayes of Glory Not that 't is really either this or that but a resemblance of them Wonderful are the effects which God produces in the Soul in this state of Interiour Silence For he deals with her as a Painter does with a Blank prepared for his Work where he draws divers lines as seems best to him God sometimes makes a silence in all the Powers of the Soul keeping them bound in the dark but in a disposition to do whatsoever he pleases with them The Spirit is a little busie to see what is doing but being check'd is quiet and the Soul having nothing to rely upon being annihilated in her self rests solely on God reposing her self in him with Patience and Humility Otherwhile God puts the Soul without any operation of her own in great repose and quiet neither willing nor applying her self to any thing in particular but in a readiness to do whatsoever God manifests to be his Will And this seems to me to be the most usual disposition of the Soul in the state of Interiour Silence At other times the Soul feels such a Fulness of God that she seems wholly to possess him insomuch that the Senses are partakers of the gusts and sweetness communicated to them the Soul in the Interim wholly Mortified by a constant readiness to be Sacrific'd to the Will of God At other times the Soul is wholly taken captive by Divine Love which giving her a relish of her Soveraign good all other things how excellent soever they may seem are but bitter to her The understanding here makes no use of the Light of Reason but God is pleas'd to infuse certain manifestations quick and suddain which work so secretly such changes in the Soul that she cannot perceive 'till they are done At other times when the Soul is in doubt or troubled with some disorder or discourag'd by her own weakness she finds God showing himself present with her to instruct to quicken to strengthen to succour her according to her present necessities The Soul in this state is disposed to whatsoever God pleases desires nothing required of her God works his will in her and she is Humble and Faithful and altogether submissive and plyable to his operations Thus the Soul must stand affected in respect of God but she can never come to this without great Combates continual Deaths and long Sufferings However all the Crosses can be endured in this World are but a cheap rate to purchase the enjoyment of God but for a moment In this state of Interiour silence the Soul cannot prescribe any Law to her self in her Spiritual Exercises but wait with all Humility to receive what God shall give her and be Faithful in corresponding thereto Sometimes she Suffers sometimes she Acts either in this or that manner according to the Nature of the Divine Impressions CHAP. XIII Of most Purified Contemplation ON St. Alexius's Day our Saviour gave me knowledge of a state of Prayer wherein at present I must constantly exercise my self as some Servants of God advise me but the reason they tell me I understand not My Prayer then is a denudation of all Creatures where the Soul as it seems to her does nothing but enter into possession of God in a peculiar manner who works in her what