a double degree of beatitude Purity is so beseemingly requisite in order to this Sacrament that the divine providence hath ordaind that even as it precedes the sacrifice of Christ it be propitiatory for our sins it having vertu to remit the very pain due to their fault Christ himself whom we receive is pleasd first of all to cleanse us as he did the feet of his Disciples cer he would give himself to us or deliver himself for us He shewd by that washing that not any kind of purity was sufficient but that a special one was necessary for he would not only have the hands of his Disciples clean which sufficeth for ordinary banquets but their feet also which signifyes a very extraordinary diligence God declard hereby that we are to come to the Eucharist not only with clean hands that is works devoyd of all fault but also with clean feet that is to say without so much as any print or sign of fault viz the paine due to tepid actions or sins remitted being quite abolished and in this sort grace proper to this sacrifice is powerful to cancel the penalty due to sin How shal I come worthily o Lord to receive thee what a treasure of sanctity was bestowd upon S. Iohn Baptist that his mouth might figuratively entertain not thee but thy name saying behold the lamb of God and he express the shadow of one of thy Sacraments but what purity ought to invest me who am to approach that venerable Sacrament and receive thee truly and really into my mouth o I wish I could entertain thee with as much reverence as the most B. Virgin Mother did in her sacred womb in that stupendious hour of thy Incarnation or as she embraced thy most H. Body in her bosome when it was taken down from the cross and thy heavenly Father received thy spirit at thy expiring when it was recommended into his hands What thou dividedst o Lord in thy death betwixt thy Father and Mother all that do I here adore in this Sacrament after thy resurrection for thy soul remaynes not separate from thy Body Thou affordest me that body which thou bequeathedst to thy Mother together with thy spirit which thou recommendedst to thy Father O that any one could have applyed his mouth to that of the expiring IESVS and gatherd thence his sacred breath worthy to be gatherd by the hands of God that it might animate and steer my body o that any one could with the effusion of his own blood wash the disfigured Corps of IESVS and make himself the viol of Christs blood shed for my sake to cleanse my soul so ill-favourd and ugly o that any one would hold his mouth to receive and tast the water blood which flowed from the side of Christ that not so much as one drop of it might fall to wast but thou o Lord desirous and desirable complyest with my wishes in this dreadful mystery How great joy did the Angels conceive in thy Ascension when thou entredst triumphant into heaven what longing desires preceded thy return thither o the desired of all the Hierarchyes of heavenly spirits with what jubily of hart ought I to exulâ— when thou entrest into my breast I alone upon many scores owe thee all the reverence which all the Angels exhibited when they entertaind thee returning from this world and passible life for thou frequently enterst into me that thou mayst delight me alone thou who once only enterd into heaven to cause joy to all the Angels Thou frequently dost for me alone what thou didst but once for all the quyres of blessed spirits If this favour were imparted to one alone of all the multitudes of men that once only through all eternity Christ should enter after this most amiable manner into his sole breast what a stupendious benefit would it be deemd whosoever should hear of it ravishd into extasy with this excess of bounty would scarse believe it he that received him absorpt in admiration would stand like one besides himself without voyce without motion yea without life through amazement fear joy and love unles he were miraculously sustaind by reason of such unheard-off benevolence why then do not I worthily reverence and admire a greater benefit conferd not once but often not on me alone but all wherein I acknowledg the favour done me much hightned O that I or any one could entertain thee o amiable IESVS becoming my guest as thy Father entertaind thee entring into heaven after a world of torments and death for the sanctity of all the Angels their devotion their joy pomp and celebrity fell far short I wil not say of thy majesty but even of that humility wherwith thou daignest to shut thy self up in the narrow cottage of my hart grant me grace by so rare an example to humble my self below nothing I that cannot humble my self sufficiently in respect of thy humility how can I do it in respect of thy majesty and glory o how happy is that soul that shal humble it self before this Sacrament what honour will accrew to it how wil the Angels reverence and honour such a one that it may receive its Lord with honour S. Teresa oftner then once beheld the Brothers of our Society when they went to communicate in our Church accompanyd with Angels and these holding a most rich and beautiful canopy over their heads that like royal and consecrated soules they might more honorably entertain their soveraign but when others approachd that heavenly Table she beheld no such obsequiousnes in these B Spirits and the reason was want of humility in their devotions Let us then procure with all humility devotion fervour and charity to receive that supersubstantial daily bread Let us so receive it daily as if we were never more to receive it though we come very frequently let us come so as if it were to be but once in our whole life Let our daily communion be so performd as it ought to be the first day of our life and last at our death The XII Chapter That in time of refection we must not be more indulgent to our body then necessity requires THE Angels expect thee at their supper glut not thy self like a beast with corruptible food He that is invited as a guest to anothers table eats nothing at home thou art invited a guest to heaven do not at least glut thy self upon earth If one that is cloyd with earthly food cannot be a competent guest at an earthly banquet how can he be at a heavenly one fulnes hinders the relish of material meats how much more then of divine the fasting Lazarus who could not so much as feed upon crums is now a constant guest at the heavenly supper but that glutton who cramd himself with exquisit daintyes is shut forth Men at a banquet abstain from several dishes reserving their appetite for some choyse one intending to make their repast upon that o Lord if I shal be satiated at the
first fruits of life to the Authour of life presenting thy self in the morning before him We must prevent the sun to thy benediction and adore thee o Lord at the rising of the same in the midst of our sleep it being as yet night when the pulse of the bel or some inspiration calls us to rise and behold thou our spouse comest and it is requisite to go forth to meet thee To make this encounter fruitfully it conduceth not a little to prepare oyle over night least the lamp of thy love o my soul want fewel to feed its flame and thou like a foolish Virgin be shut out which is too terrible Premeditate what language shal deliver thy first salutes to thy spouse and what affaires thou art to negotiate in time of prayer this being done if thou betake thy self to rest with sorrow thou wilt rise with cheerfulnes if thou hast a loathing of sleep thou wilt covet watching with much alacrity How can a soul enamoured upon God chuse but grieve that it must cease to love him prayse him improve its stock of merits and that all advantages of increasing his glory and its love towards so dear a spouse must be suspended how can it endure to see it self sustained by God loved by him and regaled in this interim with innumerable benefits and not to be able to relove him or as much as be thankful for such high favors Wherfore it is requisite both before and after sleep to make amends for that suspension of love and merits with more ardent affections and celestial desires supplying that loss of life wherin we cannot power out our whole harts upon God and be absorpt in him We must procure by this very cessation of merit and love to merit as much if it were in our power as if we were awake Vsurers even while they sleep increase their mony and thou wilt do the same if conforming thy self to the disposals of heaven with obedience and resignation thou make an ardent oblation of thy self and beare with patience this misery and the incident necessities of mans life He that embraceth patiently a necessary death whether it proceed naturally from some disease or be violently caused by another man he merits by it and so shalt thou if it be harsh and noisome to thee to repose and sleep as it is to those that serve love God fervently if I say thou accept of this necessary burden with equanimity it being wisely so ordained by the author of all wisdome Perchance if thou consider things in themselves and how much more burdensome sleep is then death to a true lover of God thou maist merit by sleeping patiently for his sake as by dying for patience Merit resides amidst great patience and patience is there greatest where greatest aggrievances are born most patiently Among all the burdens of mans life and all the annoyances which besiege it so closely none is greater then that of sleep or more worthily to be repented sin being excepted Other calamities are only tormentours of life sleep for its interim bereaves us of it other calamities are only opposite to the commodities of life sleep for a time impugnes its substance other calamities are in such sort noisome to our temporal life that they exceedingly conduce to eternal by affording matter of merit by raysing our minds towards God and drawing our affections as by an attractive quality sleep in it self during its raign is an enemy both to corporal and eternal life for as much as it causeth a vacancy both from merit and all thought of heavenly things other calamities are most welcome to Gods zealot because in them he doubles his spiritual advantages love is put to the rest God is glorified but sleep hath nothing at all desirable a cessation both of loving and honouring God attending it step by step wherfore sleep is more noisome and for a two fold yea manifold reason more burdensome then death it self to one that is enamoured upon God Death tyrannizeth only over the body sleep over both body and soul sleep on this behalf seems so much worse then death by how much the soul is better then the body nay much more to wit as much as the whole man soul and body is better then the body alone for death only deprives thee of thy body but sleep of thy soul also as wel as of it Death aymes only at the destruction of our body a thing frail and corruptible sleep at the soul also a thing eternal immortal which gives life to the body it being wholly insensible but for it death destroies a man sleep doth as much for a space of time as annihilate him Death is not to be dreaded for it leaves the best part of man untouched to wit his soul which makes him a man by which he loves God and apprehends his mercy and goodnes which is the glory of a man and ought to be his sole content and joy yea it leaves it more refined without impediment that it may honour love God more expeditly sleep overwhelmes and enters the noblest part of man unsouling as it were the soul it self Tel me I pray which wouldst thou resent most to die or to be annihilated if thou give glory to God by dying because such is his B. wil wilt thou not do the same if thou covet upon the same motive to be annihilated therfore if a patient acceptance of death be meritorious so wil also a patient acceptance of sleep if thou relish it as an equal burden If thou merit by embracing with patience the vexatious incumbrances of this life why shalt thou not also merit by sleep if it be the greatest incumbrance of all yea it being the sole and only thing which living and dying we must deem cumbersome for neither in this life nor after death is there any thing sin being set aside more burdensome to one that is feelingly devoted to the service of God What are accounted the burdens which press so heavily upon this life but its sufferings and miseries but one should be so far from esteeming sufferance a burden that it ought to be the scope and but of his desires next after God there is nothing more expetible then to suffer for God exhibiting this as the credentials of our love for by so doing we perfect the knot of true charity being more straitly united to him we dilate the confined raies of his glory and merit to be partakers of the same No body knowes throughly how burdensome sleep is to us besides him who is able to make a true estimate of the immensity of Gods glory the invaluablenes of his love and the least degree of grace in order to all which for this interim there is a dead surcease a suspension of all traffique for new merits After the cloze of this life what is noisome to the just besides purgatory but if thou be then in a condition of suffering it ought not to be resentive at all
thou being therby refined and purified thy spouse trimming thee up in such a dress as may wel beseem his bedchamber If he leave it then wholly in thy power to love God what cause of tergiversatioÌ„ since he leaves arbitrary to thee what thou wishest and desirest where thou hast opportunity to suffer and love there is no just ground of complaint If it were put to thy choise whether thou wouldst sleep or die for half an houres space a soul truly inflamed with the ardours of charity would of it self prefer death that it might not be reduced to a cessation of love yea it would not thirst more after the resurrection of the body then after avoiding all unnecessary excess of sleep though but for a quarter of an hour as much as might be without impairing its corporal health For the mean of discretion is every where to be observed and we must take a necessary repose though against our will that the functions of our mind may be vigorous and masculine fitly disposed for all enterprizes to Gods glory as also for praier least if we indiscreetly deprive our selves of it we be heavy at our devotions too drowzy and languishing and so by little and little quite benumd and what then wil be the issue but that we perform them with little fruit But to be too indulgent to sleep beseems the dead rather then the living and a soul weighing things in themselves that is with an impartial ballance and siezd with the heat of divine love to avoid this inconvenience all acts of love and prayse surceasing for that interim it would perchance rather make choise of a perpetual death of the body because in that case one may love enjoy God which alone sufficeth and is the chief desire of an enamoured soul but being so charmed and stupifyd it cannot although one wil not easily conceive this who doth not experience in himself the avaricious incentives of divine love and its restles longings and motions nor how contemptibly an enflamd hart spurns at all self commodity But we must not measure the ardour of true love and a devoted affection by the ell of our lukewarmnes rather by what we behold in those that fondly doat even to madnes upon a perishable beauty we may guess at the feelings and flames of a pretender to an eternal and never fading one But if thy breast harbour not fuel for such a heat shun at least as much as thou canst the chilnes of tepidity and sleepines If it were intimated to thee that forthwith thou must be annihilated such tydings would fil thee with horrour why then wilt thou so joy in sleep it being all one as if for such a respit thou wert annihilated Apprehend the incommodities of sleep which is an evil manifold death it being very opposite to a 4. fold life for sleep deprives us of the chief life of our body in which it is equivalent to death it self it takes away the life of our soul which is then as if it were not at all in this it surpasseth death sleep is also in some sort injurious to the life of grace and the eternal life by causing such an interruption of merit What then can be more prejudicial to us wherfore one that burnes with the true flame of divine love and is siezd with an ardent desire of praysing so great a good is hugely covetous of the least advantages of time and deems any unnecessary expense in that kind an irreparable loss and consequently he goes to sleep with much regret accepting with patience this necessity imposed by God upon life and making to him an oblation of it taking in good part since his holy wil is such to be deprived for this interim of what he much more covets which is to love prayse God and be restles in his service and as much as in him lyes he covets not to sleep but rather busy himself in the former actuations thinking every hour a day til he return to his wonted employment Thou also must put on this disposition of wil and offer it to God compose thy self like one ready to give up the Ghost saying with Christ into thy hands o Lord I commend my spirit By thus behaving thy self thou shalt after a manner merit by that death and vacancy of sleep so untoothsome and distastful to thy rellish Conceive also ardent desires of that ever during life when without interruption thou shalt enjoy God and bewail the miseries of this life since thou must seek repose and relaxation for thy exhausted spirits in a thing of all others most burdensome to thee and prejudicial to all to wit sleep How can life it self chuse but be noysome its very rest being so restles and its advantages so disadvantageous it is a lamentable thing that life must be repaird at the very charges and expenses of life since the lover of God esteems somtimes a short sleep more dammageable then the loss of a long life When thou art laid to repose endeavour to seal up thy eyes and hart with the ferventest act of love which ever thou didst make in thy whole life and even before thou fallest a sleep desire to rise as soon as may be purposing at thy first waking to unseale thy hart and actuate it in more fervent eâ—aculations then hitherto thou hast done so to compass in that instant a new purchase of grace It wil not a little conduce to this to beg the concurrence of thy Angel Guardian as also to use a spare and frugal diet Strike up this bargain with thy body in the meane while repose take thy penny-worths but be sure to rise as soon as the bell calls thee to work Like as the soul for the good of the body dies as it were by night and is buried so must the body die by day for the good and benefit of the soul while it is awake let the body be dead to this world as when the soul is a sleep it is dead for that respit to heaven that is to meritorious actions and pious thoughts Procure in the meane while that thy body as much as may be supply the elevations and obsecrations of thy soul the which not being as then in a capacity to pray the body must do it by lying modestly in a be seeming posture and for more decency not right upward We compose coarses and embalm them against corruption though they must shortly be the food of wormes and spoile of time so let us compose and dispose our selves in this death of sleep that we may be fit for the chast embracements of Christ Lye with thy armes or fingars a cross such treasures as these must thou coffin up together with thy self till the morning revive thee for treasures were wont to be buried and deposited with the dead Be sure thou never desert the cross but whilst thy mind cannot cling to it thy body must carrying alwayes about with it the mortification of IESVS Christ when
lives and most remote from a soul endowed with reason how much more from a spirit which breaths God A dog will hear his masters call so will not an oak or fig tree the husbandmans nor he that over feeds himself the voyce of God He to keep Adam to his duty enacted the first law of fasting the only one of that most happy state so to recommend more earnestly to us the vertue of abstinence as if it alone were sufficient to preserve innocency and other vertuous endowments putting man in a fit disposition to hear and adhere to God Our Lord would commit the tuition of his beloved child Adam and his Benjamin of creatures to no nurse but fasting into whose faithfull hands he entrusted him that it might be the foster-Father of man and his instructer to obedience But this precept being violated Adam forth with fled from the voice of God caring so little to adhere to him that he would not only not seek nor approach him but sought to avoid God who sought him He renders himself wholly unfit for all who is not abstemious he will resist Gods holy inspirations and withdraw himself from his familiarity being weand as much from the divine breasts as he yealds to these sensual appetites What commerce betwixt God and ones belly how can God affect him who affects only his gut as his God How canst thou endure o divine truth to dwel in him who is such an arrand idolater it was anciently held a high strain of folly for men to kneel by way of worship to those things that were the handy-work of men and how fond a thing is it for thee an intemperate man to set thy hart upon that which thou destroiest and wil destroy thee towitt meat and its rellish How intendest thou to feast with God to lead a celestial kind of life to fly with him upon the wings of the winds to immortality if thou takest complacence in the life of those things which stick to the earth and are rooted and half-buried in it The life of self-pamperers is extremely mortal for such is the life of plants which are in part overwhelmed with earth Those that feed their belly increase their mortality by fatning what is mortal in them becoming more mortal by hindering eternal life by defiling their mind and so contracting their soul as to render it only corporeal Adam by breaking his fast became forthwith mortal thou becomest every day more mortal by stuffing thy self with dead things and feeding greedily on slaughterd creatures and seasond for this end that they may be entombed in thee but so much more happy shalt thou be by how much thou partakest of immortality and thou shalt partake so much the more of it if thou inure thy self to a spare dyet and to feed on unsavory meats All our life in this world is bitter full of labour and afflictions wherfore it is impertinent to go about to repayr maintain it with sweet things Eat only that thou mayst live let thy meat be such as is the rest of thy life Thou livest not to eat but to dye and thou eatest that thou mayst not dye quickly Death assailes him sooner that feeds too plentifully and delicately Food must be the medicine of life not its poyson and destruction Let thy own hunger and the gall and vinegar of Christ be all thy sauce and seasoning who for that end drunk it upon the cross because whosoever combats against sin must not seek after savory meats and the adjoyning of hyssop with a spunge signifyes the vertue of cleansing that we might have a model how to purge our soules By frugality and untoothsome meat the divine character which is engraven in us becomes more resplendent and the holy purity of our mind is refind that it may be united to God made more capable of divine impressions for if fasting drive out the stubbornest dive is from anothers body much more forcibly wil it attract God so facil and benign into our own If such be the vertue of fasting that by it thou canst purify others much more wil it sanctify thy self He breaths somewhat divine who breaths abstinence and hunger the body it self is in a certain manner elevated by the force of a disengagd spirit Iron is ponderous but it becomes light by the spirit and vertue of the loadstone and if thou also fasten and hang thy self upon God he wil sublimate thy body by the vigour of thy spirit rendring it intellectual and incorporeal The composition also of thy body is rarefyed by abstinence in such sort that divine irradiations penetrate more easily into the soul and she more dextrously steers the other squard more fitly to it by a proportionable demolishment as being disbarked of that fat rind that environd it for a great weight is no wayes weildy or commodiously mannageable Lastly abstinence containes so great a good that there is nothing to which it is not extreme beneficial Other vertues adorne the soul but abstinence is salutiferous both to body and soul Both Saints Philosophers by embracing it protracted their life to a faire old age We men designd to be immortal had contented our selves in that most happy state of innocency to feed only upon hearbs the fruits of the earth now temperance also restores to man that golden age Spare diet conduceth to the health of the body it is a natural restaurative an universal medecine fit to be applyed to al kinds of diseases The skilfullest Physitians prescribe it for the first recipe in all maladies for oppletion is the metropolis or head-city of diseases and deaths chief sergeant All the untimely deaths of yong people are in a manner caused by excess in diet But if frugality be effectual against all the indispositions of the body it wil also give redress to those of the soul Hunger makes the proud to stoop the covetous to disburse the lazy slouthful it forceth to work it renders the luxurious chast the angry man calmely patient If then frugality even when it is forced makes head against all vices if when it is no vertue it can engender vertues what remaines when it is a true and sincere one but that must needs associate God to a soul and make him its constant sejourner God took complacence in conversing with Moyses and Elias when they were both in a long fast But after the same manner that it expels puts the divels to flight saturity bereaves us of God Vnles thou resolve to banish this vice and establish in thy soul the vertue of temperance thou maist wel dispaire of the rest It wil be the same as if one being desirous to beat away a troublesome dog should in steed of a stone throw at him a crust of bread A domestique enemy must first be vanquishd ere we can fal abord with a foraign The XIII Chapter That one must take account of his proceedings by a frequent examen of himself MEN do seldome cast a
me toile in thy iniquities neither have I any other foe so hateful to me as sin thou nevertheles art the occasion that I who make the sun to rise and send showers at due seasons watering the fruits of the earth ripening the apples on the trees furnishing the pastures with grass for the cattles sustenance thou I say art the occasion that I serve thy gluttonous appetite and in the mines which I engenderd in the bowels of the earth become a drudge to thy avarice O villany to make God the servant of villanies the captive of iniquity the caterer of wickednes the steward of malignity Thy vices also made a scorne of me as one that were blinded no man would dare play the thiefe in presence of a severe judge nor do boyes any unseemly act before their master but put out his eyes and they 'l dare any thing they 'l use ridiculous gestures and flout him without controule or danger so thou also though thou knewst me to be present didst commit all kind of wickednes because thou wouldst make me blind Thy sins my foes did that which blinding thee made thee judg the same of me in such a coÌ„dition thou deliveredst me into my enemyes hands that I could not kill them but I must dye my self nor could I indeed justly Samson like better kill sin then by my own death The VII Chapter The second part of the Parable and how we must use creatures YEa and that thy ridiculous proceeding o my soul is to be deplored with inconsolable teares when contemning the true beauty of thy spouse thou adorest its imperfect shadowes in the mean images of creatures If a great Emperour should appoint a day and place for his inauguration by the due homage of his Pears and the people being assembled for that end he should come forth in robes of state carrying his crown scepter chain of gold and other venerable ensigns of majesty and seating himself in a conspicuous throne in the midst of the market place expected each moment the rites and ceremonies of Consecration if in this expectancy they should all forsake him and turne themselves to his statue ill-polishd half defacd and carrying scarse so much as a resemblance of his features and should all adore and do homage to it leaving the good Emperour all alone no body regarding him nor shewing him any respect at all what a cold entertainment would this be how would he blush and remain confounded But what if they should not onely desert him but his statue also and do their obeysance to the print of his foot and that in no better element then clay frustrating all his expectation and sleighting his majesty Thou dost this o my soul while thou lovest and adorest the mangled and mishapd goodnes of creatures which is but a trace or imperfect print of the divine contemning that original goodnes so majestique so compleat so beautiful O men why leave we God alone in his majesty and turn our backs unseemingly to him whome we were created to adore preferring a piece of clay before him what an indignity was it that Barrabas should be preferrd before Christ and Christ sentencd to the cross and how great a one will it be for dirt to be preferrd before the Divinity and be adord as God Why art thou thus cheated o my soul know that all created goodnes what soever is only a rude and duskish image of God Why does a blurrd and slubberd draught please thee when thou mayst delight thy eyes with the polishd lively original Place before a weary traveller a living a carvd horse will he chuse the carvd one since he must be forcd to carry it and not it him to come more commodiously to his journeys end why dost thou burden thy self with created goods to walk more easefully the journey of this life they are only resemblances of the living good he onely shal walk without wearines who hath God for companion of his journy Set a real and painted dish of meat before one that is hungry will he covet to feed on the painted and why then desirest thou shadowes images and seeks not after a real good Man is more absurd then a dog who if he light on a piece of bread he takes it and leaves it not to bite at a shadow but thou leaving God embracest his shadow Why desirest thou a part rather then the whole if one that is thirsty see two pitchers the one whole the other broken wil he leave the whole one and content himself with the eare of the broken or some other fragment to take up water to quench his thirst creatures are onely partial images of the divine goodnes whose perfections are divided among created natures why wilt thou choose a part rather then the whole and a part of that whol which availes not but in the whole neither do creatures conduce singly a part nor all together but only in God broken pitchers nor any fragment of them in particular nor all together are useful to take up water and the thirst of our appetite can onely be satiated with the integrity of the divine goodnes Learn the true use of creatures they are not to work upon the will but to help the memory Thou forgetting God amuzes and busies thy will but does not satiate it and because it is not satiated thou mayst easily know thou art deluded Albeit thou love all the goods of this world yea and enjoy them all yet stil thy desire will be as empty and hungry as ever Painted bread doth not fil one but is onely a figure of that which fils so created goods do not satiate the appetite but are resemblances of that which satiates to wit God All the goods of this world stand proportiond to our will as a painted fire to a cold hand one may take it and apply it but shal find neither warmth nor refreshment A picture of burning coales pleaseth the eye but contents not the touch of him that is cold and created things affect the mâ—nd but doe not satisfy the affection God gave his people monitory memorials of his law which they were to sow in the skirts of their garments to hangat their wrests write in the posts and gates of their houses least forgetting the true God of Israel they might fal to adore false ones No less provident was he in the great house of this world which he built for man he engravâ— every where in it monitories of himself in the posts in the gates in the pavements of the earth by such variety of natures in the rooff and arches of the heavens by so many refulgent lights All the good that is among creatures are so many commandatories to make thee love God and adore no other why then Pharisy like contemning this admonition dost thou dilate them and magnify these borders possessing more or covetting more or deeming any thing great besides him Thou crosses and thwarts the designes of God adoring that
Men glory in those things of which they ought to be ashamd it lies against all experience in telling them that their riches wil be permanent since they pass through so many hands to come to them who now possess them It holds those things forth for good each one wherof is no less then a triple torment the number of evils and vexations are in such an excess that it affords more then two real afflictions for one seeming happines Ther 's no one thing of all we possess but rackd us with toile and sollicitude how we might compass it and having compasd it we are no les tormented with fear and iealousy of it and when it is lost with grief for its absence and privation O heavenly truth what great God a mercy if I do not covet this meer chaos of deceitfulnes and vexation if I contemn for thy sake a thing so contemptible which were to be contemnd if not for it self at least for my self many heathen Philosophers quitted the world for their own quiet and why shal not a Christian do it for his and thy glory They left it because despicable in it self and why shal not we do it because thou art inestimable and the glory which we hope for invaluable Although the world were good yet it were folly to prefer it before that which containes all good The XI Chapter How Peace is to be obtained THou canst not live wel unles thou dye forthwith and overcome thy nature Thou canst not enjoy peace unles thou make war upon thy self this is the way to purchase true liberty Be readier alwayes to comply with anothers will then thy own thou shalt not know what it is to be at jars love rather to have little then much and thou shalt have no occasion of complaint chuse alwayes the meanest place and to be every ones underling and thou shalt scarse ever be sad have a desire to suffer and undergo somthing for thy IESVS sake and thou shalt think no body burdensome seek God in all things that his will may be fulfilld in thee and thou shalt never be disquieted If thou ought to accommodate thy self rather to anothers wil then thy own why not to the divine wil and rejoyce that it is fulfilld by thee keep these things in thy hart that thou mayst enjoy an uninterrupted peace True tranquillity of mind cannot be obtaind but by a contempt of the world and conquest over our selves This may be done two manner of wayes either by forcing thy self contrary to what seems good and delectable in the world and nature or by knowing them to be nought and weighing all things in the ballance of truth this latter way is the sweeter and more permanent although it must alwayes be accompanyd with a fervorous contradiction of our appetite He nevertheles who in faith and spirit is convined of the verity and vanity that is in things shal with much facility overcome himself and dispise the world Nothing conduceth more to a happy progress then to frame an unbyazd judgment of things and to relish them according to the doctrine of IESVS What hearst thou pronouncd by that most holy mouth of truth it self blessed are the poor of spirit blessed are they that mourn blessed are they that suffer persecution Why wilt thou esteem those things harsh and burdensome which the truth of God held and deliverd for beatitudes how canst thou avoid being deceivd if thou account those things evil which faith teaches us to be good and to render us happy we believe the mystery of the most B. Trinity because Christ reveald it to us the same IESVS also reveald that those things which the world so much abhors poverty sorrow injuries are not bad but good neither is he to be ratherd is believd in this point by him that knowes he taught so then when be teacheth the unity and Trinity of almighty God Let us then make a true estimate of truth and frame our dictamens point blank opposite to worldly maxims O eternal truth grant me grace that according to thy doctrin I may judg all temporal things meer lyes and those far from containing great good which bring so much hurt Grant me that I may not live in an errour by prizing those things highly which I ought to have in hatred If it be a matter of faith that poverty humiliation affliction are not only good but beatifying why do not I rather chuse to have litle then much to be dispisd then praysd to be afflicted then swim in delights He that walks in faith and truth accounting those things truly good which CHRIST judgeth such ought to be so far from being contristated for any want or vexation that he should covet them with his utmost desires and rejoyce in them and abhor wholy and not in part only all things which the world loveth and embraceth and admit and desire with his whole hart with his whole soul with all his strength with all his mind what soever IESVS loved and embracd Like as worldlings who follow love and seek with great earnestnes those things which belong to the world to wit honours fame and the opinion of a great name upon earth as the world teacheth and deceives them so those that make a progress in spirit and truth doe seriously follow love and ardently desire whatsoever is altogether opposite to these that is to be clad with the same livery and ensignes of contempt which the Lord of glory wore Insomuch that if it could be done without any offence of the divine Majesty and sin of their neighbour they would suffer contumelies false witnes affronts and be thought and accounted fooles they giving nevertheles no occasion of it because they desire to resemble and imitate in some manner the Son of God For this purpose let thy chief aym and study be to seek thy own greater abnegation and continual mortification as much as thou canst in all things Why wilt thou live in guile and deceit making no reckning of those things which God prizd and honored so highly that he thought them worthy of his best beloved and only begotten Son Verily although they were not raâ—kd amoÌ„g good things yet for this sole reason that IESVS chose them for himself they are honored sufficiently and worthy to be sought by us with the whole extent of our hart and for this sole cause that he dispisd all worldly goods though men have them in so great esteem they are to be held base and infamous and deservedly to be abhord more then death it self IESVS overcome with love of us made choice of these things the world hateth and why shal not we for his sake at least accept them What do I say for love of IESVS we ought to do it for love of our selves He that loves his soul and his life let him love to dye even while he yet liveth If thou lovest life why wilt thou not rather love an eternal and happy one then this wretched and momentary
spirit he alone that is in grace is a living image of God quickned with his spirit and as it were the child and image of his parent by participation and communication of nature What a deal of difference is there and how far falls a material picture or statue of some king short of the kings own beloved Son the noblest essence and natural perfection of the highest Archangel falls much shorter of a soul that is in grace for there is no substance or nature but it represents God only after a dead manner no otherwise then an Emperour is represented by a piece of wood or marble or a painted tablet Among those that partake of the same nature there is not so much a similitude as an identity or selfsamenes therfore the H. Fathers stile one that is in grace the same with God like as the father and the Son in humane generations are accounted the same person The natural Son of God himself said let all be one as thou o father in me and I in thee that they may also be one in us For although each just man besides the just of justs IESVS becomes only such by adoption there is a greater tye unity betwixt him God then is found betwixt natural parents and their children The children of men have only a smal parcel of base matter and their parents flesh but he that is in the degree of grace receives the whole divine spirit within him Therfore the adoptive filiation of God is a more sublime manner of filiation then that which is naturally found among men O man rejoyce in this thy dignity and do not degenerate from the divine condition thou art raysd to have a care of Gods honour be zealous in his quarrel if not because he is thy God at least because he is thy father and all that he hath shal be thine Children because they hope to inherit their fathers patrimony follow their fathers busines thou being heir to God must not carry thy self like a stranger or alien Although God had not given us our creation yet for this only that he adopted us his children we owe him a cordial love and must discharge our duty in things appertaining to his service with a great deal of zeal O most loving father why am not I touched with a deep resentment for being enrolld into thy family and tasting so singularly of thy providence Wild beasts out of love to their yong ones expose themselves to a hazard of death and what wilt thou do who hast given such a remonstrance of love even for us who condemnd thy natural Son as to take us for thy children O what confidence ought a soul to have in this filiation although God were not a God of providence yet he would be watch fully careful sweetly sollicitous over him that is in grace no les then a mother in widowhood over her only and beloved child yea far greater then this is Gods affection and vigilancy in regard of the just To this we may add that by grace we become the friends of God IESVS himself utterd these words sweeter then honey drops ye are my friends For by grace there accrues a certain dignity betwixt God and man not of a disproportionable degree but so dignifying that it elevates him to the order of things divine and of a mortal man makes him a friend and favorite of the immortal king Although we did not become the children of God yet for this sole respect that grace entitles us his beloved its worth exceeds all valuation A friend is preferrd before a kins man and is held more trusty then nature it self allies are often neglected or become the objects of hatred friends are alwaies beloved men do more for their friend then for their brother what then shal we conceive of friendship with God There are two things which endear much alliance and love and both of them are found in grace To be loved by God is a rich mine of heavenly gold and a magazine of all divine blessings The love of God is not â—oytering and sluggish but most effectual and operative To love one is to wish him wel in God it is the self same to wil and to do and consequently whomsoever he loveth he enricheth him with the treasures of heaven The love of God is an ever flowing conduit or rather a river of celestial blessings If he exposd his life for his enemies what will he do for his friends There is no incongruity or inconsequence to be found in God wherfore if he did so much for those that hated him he wil do incredible things for those that love him carrying a special providence over them If he have so much care of our enemies as to command us to love them what wil he have of his own friends He loved us so affectionately when we were yet his foes that he seemd to love us more then himself and if he did this when we were his enemies wil he do les when he both stiles and accounts us his friends Thou wouldst be glad to have a friend as faithfull to thee as Ionathas was to David but all humane fidelity is a meer toy yea to be accounted but treachery in regard of that which God shewes on thy behalf Men hold it no smal favour to be taken notice of by a terrene king what wil it be to be loved so affectionately loved by God wilt thou know o my soul how signally remarkable Gods friendship fidelity is He is so enamourd upon his friends that he cannot endure to be separated from them If his immensity were confind only to heaven he would relinquish it to come to one that is in grace nor would he ever be from him but would make himself his coÌ„stant sejourner that our society may be with the father his Son Iesus Christ by the mediation of the H. Ghost who is diffusd in our harts Deer and lambs and pigeons are sociable creatures they willingly sort with one another love those whom they know to be of the same kind God is sociable the Son of God is a lamb the divine spirit is tame and affable it loves those that become divine affecting the fellowship of his nature and as it were of the same feather with him If the most sacred Humanity of Christ took such complacence in any one as to be alwaies present with him what should we think of such a singular priviledg and why do we not admire that the Dinity never departs from the just man but becomes his unseparable companion and not only dwels with him as his fellow sejourner but even in him in whom he placeth his tabernacle much more willingly then in the sun What parent so loves his child as with his good wil never to be from him but alwaies in his company yea such a one assignes him a tutour and commits him to his custody But God our parent and friend entrusts us to no body else he
his own Son so pretious to him The XIII Chapter How Penances and Corporal afflictions help us THorns conserve plants in a garden austerities grace in a just man A fresh vigour of mind flourisheth many times in a tottering and witherd body That Physitians may cure the body they more and more afflict it by bitter potions by abstinence by breathing a veine by searing it and other wayes yet more penal if it be exacted of thee to afflict it in some sort for the good of thy soul no great matter is demanded He that is ill at ease amidst his gripes and paines casts up what annoyd him so the peccant humours of our soul are not purgd by living pleasantly since the maladies of our bodies are not curd without annoiance A flint being beaten yealds flashes of light and the flesh by chastisements illuminates the mind That soul shewes it self a very beast which treats not its body like a beast Even as afflictions and crosses sent by God make men relent think upon him indoctrinate them enkindle fervour increase familiarity with God and raise their harts so voluntary austerities have like effect they make man have a more frequent recourse to God and being voyd of sensible gust they dispose him better for divine illustrations The curbing of nature is a fit disposition for increase of grace this is the ayme and endeavour of grace to divorce us from temporal corporeal and visible things and a penitential life finds this half done to its hand supposing it be accompanyd with divine grace without which nothing is beneficial to us nothing profitable The depth of our humiliation together with bodily austerity is the throne and kingdom of grace and a step to glory and the crucifying of our flesh the exalting of the spirit Thou armest thy self with voluntary afflictions against necessary ones learning thus in the school of patience how thou art to embrace those which are sent thee from God By these skirmishes thou art taught to overcome thy self and consequently disable thy greatest antagonist by whom the rest assaile thee thou also findest a more speedy redress at the hands of God in thy addresses to him Although Christ crucifyd be a sufficient warrant for our penitential austerities yet we might specify many more and principally our innumerable defaults and penalties due for them that we may make amends for what is past and lessen future misdemeanours Thy soul must be the executioner of thy flesh for this end through the great mercy of God it is repriev'd and rescued from the paines of hel fire Sometimes it happens that of two criminals sentencd to death the one partner is quitted upon this condition that he execute the sentence of death upon his companion becoming his hangman for want of another Our soul and body are joynt sharers in sin let the soul be the executioner of divine justice over the body and punish it in a due manner she when she first sinned being repriev'd from eternal damnation Suffer nothing to pass unpunished make thy self formidable to thy self as one that can be cruel against thy self a most impartial and severe chastizer of all the delinquencies and soothings of the flesh all must undergoe their due penalty There 's no citty wel governd unles its penal lawes be in force and vigour nor can that conscience be wel orderd where so many depraved affections are on foot without its courts and sword of justice The punishment thou inflictest upon thy self must be corresponding to thy fault beware God call thee not to an account for contemning corrupting justice Take pennyworths of thy self both because thou pleadest guilty hast playd the naughty judge in acquitting thy self so often by being indulgent to thy self Iustice is exercisd in cityes rather to terrify others by such an example from offending then to lessen the guilt and punishment of him that is nocent but thou reapest more ample fruit by chastizing thy self thou shalt not onely henceforth deter others from offending but thy self that thou mayst not commit new ones and diminish the punishment due for the committed Thy severity is not a piece of justice but indulgence for mans revenge works Gods pardon Yet in all thy proceedings be mindful how prayse worthy is obedience and how profitable discretion least thou practise austerity unadvisedly with decrease of thy own profit and les increase of Gods honour and service for the divel is ready to catch at all turnes Nevertheles be careful above all and at all times rather to chastize thy will then thy body but as far as a prudent circumspection divested of self love and the advice of thy superiour with regard to each ones age condition strength inclination employment and necessity shal permit such austerities thou must without mercy and self-flattery not be sparing in inflicting them O mercyful truth how can I flatter and pamper my self if I call to mind the hardship and torments which my most innocent IESVS sufferd for my sins and the paines that are indured by the soules in Purgatory It would be accounted a huge priviledge if God should permit a soule in those scorching flames to redeem its sufferings as we now may by undergoing voluntary afflictions Let us now make use of this his indulgence If a creditour should remit to one a debt of a hundred talents upon this condition if within a prefixt time he payd him only one would he think you refuse so gainful a bargain What a madnes is it in us to chuse rather to pay a hundred in the other life then one in this But what need of remission of these terrifical paines the gracefulnes and beauty which accrues to our flesh in the life to come is a sufficient incentive Remember how glorious and seemly our bodies will be in the future resurrection which shal share of comelines and splendour according to the rate and proportion of their now-present sufferances The robes which are to vest them in eternity are woven by the home spun temporal afflictions of this life Some not to appear deformed to the eyes of men have sufferd their limbs and bones to be cut and rackd half the tearm of their short life eternal beauty is purchasd at a far easier rate it is not requird that we cut them but only that we do not pamper them a litle vex annoy them Our H. Patriarch S. Ignatius understood this excellently wel who being not as yet converted to almighty God to avoid deformity commanded a bone to be cut out enduring the pain without a tear without a sigh without the least sign of grief or torture but after his conversion he judgd it an act far more heroical upon consideration of a future comelines that is to invest us in the resurrection to undergoe austerities to fast for whole weeks together to disciplin himself thrice a day to make prolix genuflexions lying on the bare ground wearing a rough hair-shirt clad in sackcloth going barefoot treating his
perswaded himself that to asswage it thou mightest be induced to sin Am I thirsty and so wert thou also and upon the cross neither was their any body that offerd thee a refreshment I am not in such a condition and easily find those who afford me that courtesy Am I cold thou didst quake and shiver when thou lodgedst in the māger Am I disturbed in my repose thy Disciples did also awake thee when thou slept in the ship Am I injured by any one thou pleading innocent wert sentenced to death Am I affronted or suffer reproach thou wert publickly produced by Pilate in the view of all the people he crying aloud behold the man am I weary thou didst sit at the fountain quite tyrd with travelling about Am I falsely accused and so wert thou also in the house of Caiphas Am I rebuked for my good deeds and thou also for curing on the Sabboth Am I slanderd they murmured against thee that thou cast out divels in the Prince of divels Am I mocked and derided thou wert also taunted and flouted at by those who sayd he hath saved others himself he cannot save Do I receive cross and harsh answers thou receivedst far harsher and over and above a villainous servant gave thee a box on the eare Am I forsaken by my friends thou wert abandoned by thy own Disciples Do I depart from my kindred thou departedst from thy Mother to go to thy Passion Am I sleighted in my advice thy doctrine also both was and is contemned Am I annoyd with temptations thou also wert pesterd with them in the desert Am I sorry for my brothers miscarriage and thou didst grieve for the Apostasy of thy Disciple become a runnegate to truth Am I sorry for my own defects thou beheldst them before me ressentedst them Do I feel want of devotion thou didst cry upon the cross my God why hast thou forsaken me what distress then is there eyther corporal or spiritual of which we find not relief in Christ first of all distressed for us This is it which he saith come to me all yee that labour and are burdend and I will refresh you O most sweet and comfortable promise the very hearing wherof is so recreative If Christs labour doth ease ours how much more will his glory do so if his distresses be so effectual what will his power and riches be but I most meek Lord covet only thy helping hand that I may suffer with thee not that thou mayst comfort me in this life in which my soul desires neither corporall nor spiritual joy but onely to suffer for and with thee The VIII Chapter How purity of body helps the spirit HE that dwels in a fenny unwhole some country what wonder if he be often ill disposed as on the contrary he that breaths in a pure and sweet ayre healthful so a soul in an undefiled body is lusty and vigorous in a foggy and corrupted one drooping and sickly The mind in unspotted and Virgin flesh is as it were in a flowry and fragrant mead Chast bodies are the delights of God what wonder if they be healthful to their soules They let their mind attend wholly to God free from the disturbance of temporal things they exhilarate the conscience in a loathsomnes of all sensual pleasures loving God without let or obstacle O my love o most pure and sincere truth I am endebted to thee o God not only for the half of my hart but for the whole I will not onely purify my mind but also sanctify my body We are members of Christ let not one corrupted and unseemly limb defile and mishape a most beautiful body Who would prize the beauty of a graceful spouse if she had a putrid nose or a face and cheeks which were a receptacle of wormes Christs glorified body is a thousand times more pure and refulgent then the Sun O mortal man thou art a member of the immortal CHRIST consider how much thou oughtest to regard the sanctity of thy body and to thy utmost imitate immortality and incorruption least thou be disagreeing from his purity Thou art made one spirit and one flesh with Christ by the communion of his most H. Body do not defile thy own flesh which by a wonderful kind of real union is become the flesh of Christ Thou wouldst deem it no les then a sacriledge if one should clothe the statua of a Saint in a spotted nasty garment why art not thou at least ashamed to defile that flesh which is a part of the living Christ and add an obscene and polluted member to it thou thy self wouldst not weare a piece even of royal purple if it were steept in dirt and clay and why wilt thou weare thy own flesh staind so pittifully with filthy blemishes and make it a part of Christs body As both our soul and body shal in the next life glorify God in unspeakable purity so must we in this also strive to serve him in cleanenes of both Thou must not only seek beatitude by the sanctity of thy soul but must endeavour also to merit the felicity and resurrection of thy body by the sanctity of thy flesh least siding with thy mortal part at the instigation of some pleasant object thou sentence thy self to a perpetual death But learn now so to behave thy self in flesh as that thou mayst resemble the Angelicall spirits who shall neither marry nor be married Learn now the incorruptibility and being of a single nature and life abstracted from all sense Thy body must emulate the purity of the celestial Thrones in whom God hath seated himself since it is the temple of the H. Ghost chosen to be a vessel of honour We are the good odour of Christ Christ breathes purity every where his attendance is Virginity his delight chastity In almost all the calamities of this world chastity was as it were a lenitive to God a repayrer of its dammages he found an excellent way of repayring the ruines of the Angels chiefly principally out of Virgins chast persons by them chusing a Virgin Mother and Precursour having his Disciples and the peers of his Church the more eminent part of his Saints for the most part Virgins or living in continency or without the use of their wives or separated from them and all of them most chast he mitigated the sad disaster of Adams fal with the hopes of a Virgin that was to bruize the head of the Serpent those whom he saved in the deluged world kept chastity while they were in the Ark Christ solaced himself upon the cross with his B. Mother and beloved Disciple both Virgins How can he chuse but love chastity Virginity both his Parents being Virgins he having all his being derived from Virginity Christ had a Virgin Father according to his divine nature and a Virgin Mother according to his humane He would moreover have the type and substitute of his Father to wit S. Ioseph a
the very thought of it will fill thee with dread and horrour this will be small in comparison of the deformity of a small offence The more excellent a thing is the more we ressent its corruption and crookednes proves there the greatest eye sore where straightnes is most requird what more excellent then our minds and will which is in an eminent degree above any other creatures wherfore it s least defect is very ugly neither can understanding humane or Angelical penetrate to the ful the harme it causeth to a soul What a prodigious thing would it be if thou carriedst thy hart in thy belly and not in thy breast it is a greater prodigy that a soul made to love God should covet pleasures or deforme it self with the intemperance of gluttony or neglect in any other depraved affection Thou must have a horrour not onely of enormous sins but also of all venial which are esteemd little material and faslely tearmd petty ones That is not justly stild light and little which only hath above it another which is great A venial defect is not little which hath only above it another greater that is a mortal one yea for this reason it is to be thought great because it hath above it but one evil which is greater Men esteem not only death evil and dread it as such but also a feaver or a deadly wound That must needs be a vast evill which is only less then one evil a vast evil which is greater then all others wants disgraces sicknesses torments and hell it self it is a vast evil greater then which or equal God neither knowes nor can inflict although he should heap all the punishments of the damned upon thee Thou wouldst think it unsupportable to have a canker which rotted and consumed thy limbs what if other diseases much greater were added to this leprosy stoppage of breath the palsey dropsey loathing of the stomack the gout blindnes phrensey dumbnes extinction of natural heat One sole venial sin is more hurtful then all these Venial sin is a canker it spreads insensibly even to death inducing many others and at length a mortal unles the depraved affection be cut off It is a leprosy debarring the scabby and loathsome soul of the embracements of her spouse it is a stoppage causing difficulty of breathing after heavenly things and admitting divine inspirations grieving and contristating the H. Ghost it is a palsy retarding the nimble motions of our mind towards God and making us dul and stupidly insensible in the divine service it is a dropsy begetting a thirst high conceit of temporal things and a neglect of divine and wholsome ones it is a loathsomnes of stomack causing aversion from spiritual affaires it is a gout impeding us in the advancement of a vertuous progress it is a blindnes making us dim-sighted in the knowledg of truth heavenly goods veyling our eyes with fond worldly principles as if a thick mist were cast before them it is a phrensy making the soul go out of her right wits what greater phrensy imaginable then that he whom the king to honour him to have him his courtier yea and adopt him for his Son had clad in royall purple should go dip it in a dirty pudle and then ridiculously appear in his presence in like manner one that is vested with divine grace and the purple of God defiles himself with venial sin and though he be not stript of that pretious robe yet he pittifully bedaubs and misuseth it and dares in this pickle appear before the Angels and come into the presence of God Venial sin is also a deprivement of speech rendring our praiers so ineffectual that we deserve not to be heard nor obtain redress at the hands of heaven it is a wasting consumption disabling the mind to resist the divel it is a decay of vital heat much diminishing the fervour of charity Can that be little which is the cause and source of so great evils how can a soul in this equipage desire to repose in the bosome of her spous stench of breath alone is a sufficient cause of divorce in order to marriage bed how then dares she that is struck with a leprosy palsy dropsy she that is miserably bleer-eyd presume to aspire to a kiss of her spouses mouth if we should spoil our apparrel with spittle or dirt yea though it were only wet with fair water we would presently put it of and lay it aside refraining to appeare in it before company how then can we have patience not with our apparrel but our selves who are nasty sordid defild diseasd and yet even thus we covet the embracements of God never thinking of being first cured or putting our selves in better array if thou wouldst be content on condition of being cured of any of the afore said diseases suppose it were the canker alone nay out of hopes of being cured though with hazard to have some limb cut of how much more to be cured of them all o the stupidity of man I who is so insensible of so many maladies that befall his soul and procures not what in him lies an easy and obvious remedy in order to a certain and invaluable recovery of its health from so many dangerous diseases since for the uncertain recovery of his body he spares neither limbs nor any kind of torment Go too silly fool be sure in the first place to provide for thy soul and use as much caution as thou canst by avoiding venial sins not to incur so many diseases and for that end be sparing neither of care nor industry Thou maist conjecture the greatnes of the malady by the difficulty of the cure Behold what a medecine purgatory which is the hospital of such diseasd soules applies to them can it be little which must be cured with that fire and such bitter torments would one suspect that fault little for which he sees a nice and tender woman tormented in a flaming furnace for an houres space and that by the command of her most indulgent and affectionate spouse certainly either her spouse might be thought some furious fellow or the fault was highly displeasing Why do we esteem venial defects of smal concern for which God who is so loving and merciful towards men wil have soules so dear to him to lie daies and yeares in scorching flames without the least resentment of compassion either God is very unjust and cruelly bent or the least offence is a fearful irreverence vast ingratitude Thou o Lord art no tirant but an humble lover of soules and thy mercy is above all thy works this is â—y impudency too too enormous and stupenlious which thou who art most just most meek and humble of hart who wouldst be glad to remit much of that pain art forced to correct with so much severity least thou prove defective in point of justice If one should behold a dog struggling in the midst of flames and perishing in a burning pile
but little regard notwithstanding what affront I put upon him besides death or a deadly wound I will uncontroulably do what I think good nor ever labour to humour him further then may serve to save my life and secure my inheritance Who could have patience with one that should speak thus do accordingly Iust thus proceeds he who contemnes venial sins and serves God meerly to avoid the death of his soul or forfeiture of heaven by a mortal Is there think you any master of a family to be found who would give house room to such a servant or Son or spouse this is the prodigious patience of God who tolerates us even while we abuse his toleration Let us then not misprize these faults as little which although they were so yet are they many and God is great and but one Grains of sand are smal yet they may be so multiplied that they wil overwhelme one sooner then a great stone One locust is an inconsiderable creature yet what greater destruction to the fields then their multitude great citties are delugd by smal drops of raine If we had so many little wounds or pricks in our body so many pushes or blisters in our face so many rends or holes in our garment as we commit venial sins we should be halfe dead loathsome to the eye and almost quite naked and why do we suffer those miseries in our soul but because we are less ressentive of its harmes then what concerns our body and apparrel O how dare we appear before God so replenished with confusion but why do I insist upon the number one sole fault is to be dreaded because one cannot think any thing little who thinks God to be infinite nor will he account it smal whose love is great what love resides in him who makes no reckning of displeasing God he that displeaseth him in a little really displeaseth him he that displeaseth him transgresseth the lawes of an ardent love The XIV Chapter Of exactnes in small things GOd is immensly great in his service thou must esteem nothing little he were not great enough unles he exceeded all littlenes If thou lovest him true friendship is tried in the least duties Art shewes it self in little things the perfection of vertue is no les polite and therfore it stands not altogether upon ample subjects Nature is most admirable in the least things it is most tender over the minutest creatures Grace is no whit more dul nor ought to be more backward Those things which seem more minute are to be more nighly regarded Since God is so great nothing is little which eyther pleaseth or displeaseth him In good evil there is no minutenes Whatsoever is good for that very respect is great whatsoever is bad upon that very score is not little An infinite goodnes exacts by claime all our forces he that owes all doth an injury if he deny any thing Vse not these manners of speech what makes matter for this this imports but little this is of no moment at all Yea this which thou deemst nothing is a busines of great concern because what thou thinkest much or of great moment is nothing in comparison of Gods greatnes and thy obligation O immense truth how can any thing be thought little or great if the measure of my obligation diligence be thy immensity where there is no little nor great but an excess of all meane How can I say this is little if whatsoever I do for thee is nothing It is not little which is held the least since perfection consists in the least Little things are not to be sleighted because greater are contemned If thou let a spark of fire fal into a pile of dry sticks which thou keepst under thy roof a great flame will be raisd which will consume the whole edifice Our corrupt nature is as apt to take the infection of malice as a little dry flax to take flame If thou sleightest smal things by little and little thou wilt be perverted Regard not the littlenes which appeares at first but by the beginning measure the end Seeds are allwaies extreme little and yet there is more vertue and efficacy in them then in any part of the whole plant The parting of two high waies insensibly protracted into length ends at last in a great interval of distance and may proceed to an infinitude though at first les then a step would have concluded the difference If thou once swarve from thy good purposes and remit that vigour of mind thou wilt by degrees find thy self very remote from thy former fervour Great things take their beginning from little wherfore a little is not the least if it be but the beginning The beginning of every thing is its chief and principal part yea it is not calld a part but the half of the whole Our H. Father S. Ignatius did with reason hold that it was more dangerous to contemne little things then greater the dammage of these latter is more patent and may forthwith be remedied but the prejudice we sustain by the former is not perceived but by length of time when being inveterated by custome it is scarse capable of redress The very nature and enormity of sin makes us abhor detest great ones but little defects because they seem little for this very reason are contemned and this being so our mind is not bent against them Our concupiscence is sharpend and set on edge by little things as thinking that it may wander in them without any great danger when it is not so venturous in great ones it being curbed and kept in by the apprehension of a patent ensuing harm but when our desire is once enkindled a little traind up how wil it then lash forth what wil it not encounter and for this reason we must sometimes proceed with more warines and sollicitude against smal defects then great Custome which gaines prescription upon vices breeds from little things not from great because they are less frequent nor shal we find it an easier task to resist custome then nature One shal sooner have an action in law against a publick invader and forcible seizure of our goods then one that hath had them by long prescription Those things which seem light take from us all remorse and shame of committing them that towards God being once cast of what good can be expected from us past shame past grace Be ashamd to refrain from great things and yeald to little for it is disgraceful and a sign of a coward to be foild by a dwarf or weak enemy That little is not to be sleighted in which great worth may be comprized A pearl is not contemned by reason of its littlenes nay for this respect it is valued the more as containing great worth in a little body why dost thou sleight that little wherin perchance thou maist do God a piece of better service then in greater Obsequiousnes and diligence in small things gaines greater
live with thee teach me how I may truly live to day Thou must o remiss spirit daily arme thy self to combat and awake with great chearfulnes as one would do to battail the sign of falling on being given as it were by this trumpet thou shalt love thy Lord God with all thy hart with all thy soul with all thy mind with all thy strength Let this precept allarme thee in the morning perswade thy self that each day of thy life is not only a day of warfare but a set day for combat How cheerfully do soldiers rise that morning wherin they receive orders to prepare for batail a soldier is not found unarmd in the day of combat thou must make account thou art to fight every day arme thy self early in prayer with a most fervent charity with a most profound self contempt with patience mortification all the stratagems thou canst invent The sole suspition of a batail armes a souldier and makes him continue so for many dayes because he expects to fight one day what ought the certainty and belief of a daily conflict to operate in us dispose all thy actions in the morning and depose them in the hands of God and purpose to be twice as good to day as thou wast yesterday least in the day time the divel interpose himself and prevail so far as to make thee abate of thy fervour Rise wel animated against all the difficulties which attend this life and if any of them â—ccost thee or thou become slouthful be not faintharted but rather joyful For why â—n occasion is presented of a greater victory assaile them undauntedly like one valiant souldier encountring another who is not dismaid at his presence nor seeks a starting hole but stands his ground and joyes to have met him whom otherwise he would have sought Fight stoutly all day long and at night expect to die The life of man is a warfare in which life is allwaies hazardous and labour certain As often as thou art but a little foild fight more eagerly and perswade thy self that such foiles wil be frequent for the just man is foild 7. times a day but rise forth with with redoubled courage as a souldier who having received a wound flies more keenly at his adversary Where thou perceivest any breach make it up incontinently and fortify it more strongly by calling a squadron of reasons to thy assistance which must be at hand like a valorous and approved reserve mustered from thy morning meditation repentance and humility leading them up And delay not to repair that negligence for otherwise thy vigour of spirit wil easily slacken He that receives but a sleight wound will faint unles he stop the effusion of blood and by delay that which is otherwise but an inconsiderable hurt wil become mortal Apply a remedy out of hand differr it not till night or another day for although it seem nothing it will hinder the progress of thy other actions If any one have got a thorn in his hand or foot he puls it out immediately he lets it not alone till night or some few daies after otherwise he will be able neither to walk nor do any thing else and the delay may be such that by festering it may prove a canker and cannot be cured but by cutting of Yet for all this be not so contristated for any smal defect as that it smel rather of pride then repentance and thou be hinderd thereby from performing thy other exercises which require a great deal of alacrity B. Aloysius Gonzaga had reason to say that those who were too anxious over their smal defects did not sufficiently know themselves Thou art all misery but thou hopest one day to be happy be les contristated and more humble If thou acknowledg thy misery a fixt hope in almighty God will lessen thy anxiety and dispair of any good will increase humility in thee Many are therfore dejected because they grieve not so much for having offended God as for their own infirmity and vilenes while they find themselves so impotent and faint harted and because this affection naturally sympathizeth with self love it is more resented and sometimes occasioneth no smal harm Grieve only for having offended God but rejoice forth with by a confidence in IESVS and congratulate with thy self for thy own vilenes for thou art nothing of thy self but only by God which is much better for thee By this meanes the defect it self wil more animate thee and render thee more confident by putting thy trust in God since thou dost actually experience and as it were by groping palpably perceive that by thy own strength thou canst do nothing but only by God and with God on whom thou maist much more securely rely for he is far greater in goodnes then thy good will can be in constancy Perswade thy self that perchance each hour thou wilt faulter a hundred times but purpose Gods grace assisting thee to rise again a thousand By how much more frequent thy lapses are rise so much more confidently because thou art more conscious of thy own insufficiency Then is our hope more purely and sincerely fixt in God when we dispair totally of our selves and then experience it self will teach us this when we see our selves without end to fail in our good purposes God permits that because we do not sufficiently humble our selves If thou wert truly humble thou wouldst redress many inconveniences and speak nothing but victories Humble thy self in the presence of God mistrust thy self and trust in him and being armed with this live this day with much circumspection diligence and desire as if the whole multitude of men were created this day and of all that world one only were to be saved he who attaind to the highest pitch of charity and most resignd indifferency of will for which end though to others were alloted the space of a hundred years yet thou shouldst have but this dayes respit Thou art obligd to do more now to honour and pleasure God then in any contingency and supposition whatsoever for any other respect even that of salvation The VI. Chapter Of maintaining our fervour OVr spiritual life depends no les upon the hart then our corporal our hart being kept untainted and wel guarded our spirit will be in safety Mans hart is the consecrated altar of God and the throne of the H. Ghost Thou must preserve it with all sollicitude that it may be free from this world not defiled with the images of terrene impertinent things with which the world and the divel by the windows of thy senses batter thee as with so many engins Thou must be more careful of thy hart then of an altar an Oratory and consecrated chalices where we offer sacrifice worship and keep the very Body of Christ in the Sacrament With how much diligence and under how many locks do usurers keep their mony and the instruments of death with how much nicenes do those that delight
attempt things both unknown and uncertain why can we for love of vertue and the honour of God sustain nothing with constancy he that hopes for a continual and eternal good unjustly shuns labours in its pursuance he that is to be alwayes happy must be alwayes good for Each day condemns mans irreligious facts All seasons open are to vertues acts as saith S. Prosper The greatest grace of all other is to preserve the grace which is given thee and thy chief work not to surcease from doing works As a creature would be very deformed without head and life such a monster is a good life without a corresponding end We have received grace without any paines but we must conserve it both by grace and paines The beginning of a thing is accounted half its accomplishment but unles it end wel all comes to nothing In the matter of perseverance the end is all in all for nothing is done so long as any thing remaines undone It imports little to have laboured hard all ones life long if he faulter in the end The sole last moment of perseverance is more available then all the years by past for all their fruit proves rotten if it did not borrow thence a preserving soundnes Thou wilt think it a hard task to persever but it is much harder to begin again and much more then that to begin often Wherfore it is both more easy and more conducible to persever once then to begin often Horses force themselves les in a continued course of drawing a chariot then after having stood stil when they are to move it again Water which hath been once heated being taken of the fire becomes more cold then at first If fervour be wanting in thy proceedings thou also perchance wilt be more tepid then in the beginning Many grow faint-harted in the course of perseverance because they find difficulty in doing good but they do not therfore evade that difficulty for it is only perseverance that makes all easy If thou hadst the courage to begin a hard task thou mayst wel continue it that being much more easy Thou hast found so long by experience that it is neyther disproportioned to thy strength nor grace why then contrary to so long proof art thou now diffident thinking thy self unable to bear it what is eyther past or to come is not burdensome for the present do not grasp the difficulty all at once for it comes not so but by piece meale cōmensurate to the parts of time As thou wast able before to support it so art thou now and wil be henceforth It wil not be more noysome then it was but the heat of the difficulty wil remit by length of time and custome Accustome thy self to do wel and thou wilt forget to do ill Custome overcomes difficulty because it overcomes nature and what then wil grace do if custome overcome nature much more wil a wel-orderd charity in thee overcome the deordinations of nature It is better many times to fulfil a good purpose or consummate a work already begun then to begin another though otherwise more perfect because by inuring thy self yealding to a ficklenes of mind neither wilt thou performe that other Seldome can any work occur which is better then constancy in fulfilling a good purpose Good purposes are to be kept although they be not of any great regard because albeit in themselves it imports but little whether they be kept or no yet it is extremely important to be constant no wayes changeable Who is more constant in making good purposes then he who least intends to keep them If thou learnst a firm perseverance in one good against another thou wilt learn it more firmly against evil wilt not vary like time in this time of serving God O eternal truth grant me grace to serve thee eternally help o Christ my weaknes thou who with such indefatigable love tookest upon thee all our infirmities thou who never art weary with tolerating my impudent negligences grant that I may never be negligent any more nor desist impudently from thy service but may learn to brook swallow all morsels of difficulty Let me learn o Lord perseverance by thy love who when thou lovedst thine thou didst love them even to the end thou who didst persever hanging upon the cross and wouldst not desert it though the Iewes promised upon that condidition to believe in thee the Son of God who being ful of irksomnes anguish and a bloody sweat didst persist nevertheles and seeke redress by red oubling thy prayers Go too o remiss spirit tel me what must thou covet to do for thy IESVS who persevered for thee amidst the sorrowes of death and the cross who when he loved thee loved thee even to death what I say must thou covet but to do good and suffer evil These are the chief ambition of a soul that loves IESVS that which makes most for perseverance A good work presents it self what hinders thee from doing it but the trouble which accompanies it but mark wel that here concurs a second commodity of suffering evil and attend now that the good is doubled ther is superadded to this work both to suffer evil and do good Thou canst pretend no excuse for thy non-perseverance because that only hinders thee which ought to be the sum of thy desire to suffer for thy beloved If the love of IESVS were enkindled in thee all backwardnes tribulation and extrinsecal impediments would no more oppress thee then fire is with wood which forthwith more inflames it But if thou be so coldly chil that the love of God finds no fewel to feed on let thy own advantage and hope of future joy incite thee Dispair of coming off with life is wont to add valour to souldiers make them way through the thickest dangers divine hope of eternal life is yet more forcible and wil make thee more valiant and daring With this hope attempt thy enterprizes and persever cheerfully A cheerfull acceptance feels neyther labours nor trouble though otherwise the thing be laborious enough He that exerciseth himself in military games or at ball is wont to take more paines then one that hires himself forth to day-task and yet he feels it not because he takes it by way of pleasure and content If thou wilt conclude happily in the last hour be sure to begin each hour if thou intend to persever begin alwayes a new Excuse not thy negligence by indisposition of body self love for the most part deceives thee and makes thee do thy actions remisly Thy body is able to do more then thou thinkst if thy fervour of mind were but vigorous its force infusing strength even into weak and feeble limbs A lunatique person though exhausted with sicknes can do more then 4. that are sound the vigour of our mind sometimes communicates it self to the body If the infirmity of a malady can make one strong how much more the strength of grace and
obligd me with deeds and guifts why was it necessary to engage me with thy desires my miseries have bereaud me of all comfort for seing my works to carry but smal proportion with thy benefits it was some relief to endeavour satisfaction by wishes and desires but they also becoming due to thee what now is remnant o Lord how worthily art thou the butt of all desires who desird so desiringly how can I have leasure to fix my desires upon any thing els besides thee the God of desire how can my thoughts or concupiscible powers suspend themselves from the desire of thy most H. Body where the whole man becomes Christ In other Sacraments participations of grace he is made one spirit with God but in this he moreover becomes one flesh with Iesus such a strict union interceding that it is tearmd by the H. Fathers substantial natural and real in so much that now I am wholly thine and one with thee regard and reverence my self as flesh partaking of thy flesh which the most B. Virgin handled and worshipd with so much devotion being jointly two in one flesh I being able to glory and say I am now flesh of Christ a bone of the bones of IESVS This is a great Sacrament in Christ and his Church by that mystery in which we become concorporeal with the king of glory the Son of God and the Virgin Mary Now loving thee o Lord I wil love my self for no body ever hated his own flesh and thou loving thy flesh lovedst me also making both thine mine joynt-sharers of the same favours treating mine as thy own by the priviledg of the resurrection for although other just men both antient Prophets Patriarchs were not to enjoy a resurrection yet those should who dye partakers of this Sacrament of our Lords Body neyther shal this befall them only in regard of the merits of their soul but also for the dignity of their flesh O Lord thou wast desired by all nations that common nature might share of thy communications why do not I desire thee that thou mayst become individual to me one with me by that admirable inconfused conjunction with my particular flesh spirit Therfore o Lord because we do not desire as we ought thou didst vouchsafe to do it least so great a benefit should be deprived of its due love esteem Thou causedst other blessings to be sought and chiefly that of the Incarnation but thou wouldst have the institution of the venerable mystery of thy body and blood to come merely gratis without the expense of the desires of all nations That Sacrament came as an unexpected boon and unlookd-for charity that all our desires might be reserved and employd in a due reception of it and yet for all this we are not enflamed a desire of this mystery is so acceptable to thee that thou wonderfully secondest it and condescendest to a soul that longs to receive thee B. Stanislaus a novice of our Society being more then once in such acondition that he could not satiate his longing desire by feeding on this celestial bread with much ardour of devotion desired what he could not then enjoy and forthwith the Angels brought what he desird and made him eat of that sacred banquet Because the Body of Christ is seldome received with a due desire God would not let this occasion of a worthy reception slip or frustrate it beholding that B. soul in such a spiritual famine and eagernes of appetite Thou taughtst us o IESV teacher of all truth to come to this Sacrament with much tendernes of devotion but we do not imitate the devotion thou exhibitedst towards it by desiring I know not how we can if we love Christ behold this mystery without weeping eyes for a spouse cannot behold the pledg which her fellow-spouse bidding adieu towards a long journy left her for a memorial without a longing desire of his return We must not only endeavour to receive it worthily but even as worthily as possibly we can For besides that an infinite majesty requires all possible reverence and the immense sanctity of IESVS all purity imaginable we shal derive thence a great increase of grace Thou gavest us o Lord 3. documents to make us approach it with greater worthines a fervent love in desiring an exquisite purity a profound humility which thou didst exhibit in washing the feet of thy Disciples What shal I say of purity thou oughtest o lover of Christ in thy access to this table to possess it in such eminency that its beames must be no less refined then if thou wert presently to give up the ghost Thou must endeavour with more earnestnes desire and sollicitude to prepare thy self to the Eucharist then to death nay in some respect of profit more then if thou wert about to enter into the glory of God IESVS washed the feet of his Disciples being to impart his Body to them although they were already clean and notwithstanding when he sent them like lambs in the midst of wolves in such a present hazard of death when he took them along with him to Mount Tabor as eyewitnesses of his glorious Transfiguration he used no such preparative nor when in glory he eat with them after his resurrection One would be pretty wel disposed for death if he were but in the state of grace for although he were not altogether free from tax of paine or venial culpablenes yet before he stood in the presence of God he would be purifyd by cleansing flames I wish with all my hart that a Purgatory did precede the receiving of this Sacrament but because it doth not it imports me to look most narrowly into my self and prepare and refine my self from the least blemish of imperfection or debt of any penalty and supply as wel as I can by diligence and an ardent love the fire of purgatory and although all immunity both from paine and fault be requisite to gain admittance into glory nevertheles no respect is had but to precedent grace and works neyther is the divine indulgence doubled in regard of the disposition as it is distinct from merit but in the Eucharist a more ample clayme and title to glory wil be acquird even in regard of each ones disposal over and above that which is allotted to his merits he that makes it his task to till the soyle of his soul and dispose it better and better the richer Crop shal he reap thence besides the reward of his good works one ought to be much more ambitious of pleasing God and standing gracious in his eyes which is the effect of grace then of joying in the fruition of his glory if the amplenes of his beatitude were not commensurately corresponding to his grace the proportion which God holds All mediums that dispose us to glory by good works distinct from the Sacraments obtaine grace under one only title but preparation to the Eucharist under a double gains afterwards
not love thee o Lord who gavest us our whole creation are grateful towards robbers who pillage us but in part yea even towards dogs for guarding what is ours we love him that supplies us in our want and we melt not into love of thee who gavest as both essence and life when we were no better then nothing What greater want or penury then to have nothing yea to be nothing if God relieved us then by giving us a life and being why are we not mindful of such an almes since we are grateful to him who affords us but a mean support of life can it be judgd a more signal mercy to give wherewith to live then to give life it self benefits are esteemd much greater for coming in the nick of time when our indigency was most pressing and when what is given comes voluntarily and without paying so much as a begging for it What greater penury then to have nothing which is the greatest of all God then did us a great good turn worthy of the greatest love in relieving so urgent a necessity it is an inestimable benefit that he gave it so freely of his own accord when nothing of ours preceded which could exact it The more pressing ones want is although what is given be but a trifle it is more highly valued then when more is given in a less exigence thou o Lord when we were extremely penurious in our nothing didst not bestow a little upon us but all whatsoever we are Let us sum up all the benefits conferd upon men because it were too prolix to recouÌ„t all let us consider that which in the judgment of all nations is held the greatest and beyond all recompense and let us compare it with the least divine benefit of our creation Nature teacheth and preacheth that we can render no equality of recompense to our Parents and they what have they given us a stenchy body subject to sin and diseases and all the miseries of this life insomuch that they are in a certain manner more benevolent towards loathsome wormes then towards their children for they produced them undefiled with any fault nor lyable to the divine wrath but they bring forth their children accursed wearing the badg of sin worthy of death and imprisonment How o Lord can we be unmindful of thee and impudent in our carriage towards thee since thou gavest us all our being a body at that instant sitly accommodated unblemishd qualifyd with diversity of endowments a soul of a most excellent nature pure immortal spiritual the benefit we receive from our parents cost them but little for they gave us only of their superfluities not a whole body but a smal parcel of most loathsome matter and corruption thou o Lord gavest us all our selves our whol body our whol soul pure and unspotted which benefit cost thee no less then the expense of thy omnipotency Moreover what we have from our Parents they gave it not but thou by their meanes they of themselves gave us only a lyablenes to sin and an ill o men of future miseries What they afforded us was â—ot out of pure love to us but to their own â—mpure pleasure thou o Lord out of an excess of charity to us createdst us Perâ—hance our parents begot us against their wil they having many times a positive desire to the contrary it was not an effect of their affection that they begot us and not some other that being neither in their power nor choyse thy love o Lord created me and no other it was thy election thou o Lord beholding an endles multitude of men which thou couldst have created who would have servd thee much better then I pickt me out a poor miscreant for no merits of my own neither was thy love impeded by foreseing that I would prove more dissoyal then any of the rest and the greatest and wretchedest of sinners more ungrateful then Lucifer the first begotten of sin and Iudas the betrayer of thy Son and Anti-christ his opposite Behold o Lord for one only of thy benefits I stand not only endebted and owing my self to thee but am upon many scores end ebted how then shal I be able to acquit my self of others I owe my self wholly to thee because thou gavest me wholly to my self I owe my self wholly because thou disbursedst thy omnipotency upon me I owe my self wholly because thou gavest me my self not repiningly I owe my self wholly because thou didst it lovingly I owe my self wholly because thou didst it calling me by design out of millions I owe my self wholly because thou didst it foreseing that I would surpass all in ingratitude O Lord since I stand endebted my whole self under so many titles for one sole benefit grant that once at least I may pay my share for thy endles ones grant that I may make by way of discharge an oblation to thee of my whole hart and since thou conferredst not once only this one benefit so variously manifold but art still continuing and daily enlarging it by a perpetuated conservation this debt of my whole self is daily doubled to an infinitude be then endlesly taking my hart not for the good thy benefit works in me but for the good it effects in thee by making thee beneficial to me as also for the fruit I reap from it If therfore this least of thy favours be so great that I owe no les then my whole self upon so many several claymes for it what shal I do for my redemption that excelling my creation as much as God excelleth man in my creation thou gavest me to my self in my redemption thou gavest thee and restoredst me The II. Chapter That Gods benefits are without number BLess yet more and more o my soul our Lord and be not unmindful of his retributions whether towards his enemyes or towards his friends towards his Angels or the beasts of the field whether towards the blessed in remunerating them or the divels in tormenting them all his retributions are so many thy peculiar favours O God how am I engulphd in an Ocean of thy beneficence whatsoever thou dost is a benefit yea and my peculiar benefit The actuations and productions of light are light a light that is exposd for one mans direction illuminates all that stand about him so dost thou o light of truth o nature of goodnes and therfore because thou art beneficial thou canst do nothing which is not beneficial and it is necessarily consequent that the benefit thou bestowest upon one is not only proficuous to him but all Each best guift and perfect blessing is descending from above from the Father of lights because thou diffusest them like unto the diffusions of light thou communicating thy self to all and for all without any decrease or impoverishment A light remaining still intyre divides its beames to all and another without any prejudice to it may borrow some from its flame Whatsoever the sun darts forth is light all may see
it Where is our ambition our desire if it do not display and power it self forth upon this harvest of joyes and magazine of true riches I should take it for no smal dignity to be a sharer of Christs ignominy what then wil it be to partake of his glory if the ignominy of IESVS be glory the glory it self of God what wil that be if he so magnifyd the contumely of the cross as to exalt it upon the diadems of Emperors if he did so honour his torments what wil he do to his faithfull friends if he impart greater honour to the bones of Saints here among us then all the Monarchs of the world enjoy how much â—il he impart to their soules while they are reâ—â—dent with himself wilt thou make a rude â—ssay of the greatnes of glory how much it â—xceeds our labours Calculate how much â—he celestial globe exceeds in magnitude the â—errestrial this latter being but a point in regard of the first heaven and the first heaven another point or rather nothing in regard of the highest in whose circumference to one fingers breadth of earth so vast is the disproportion thousand thousands of miles are corresponding in that heaven The self-same God is author both of grace and nature and in point of bounty he would have his guifts in heaven much exceed our labours on earth Let the expectation of this so great a good be to thee alwaies a satiating repast Whatsoever thou seest good on earth contemn it as perswading thy self that thou shalt enjoy others in heaven excessively greater What evil soever annoyes thee fear it not as hoping to be out of its reach for all eternity Whatsoever is violently plunderd from thee grieve not as believing that all is depositated for thee to be made good out of the treasures of heaven Whatsoever thou dost contemn or relinquish for the love of God deem it not lost or cast away as supposing that it is not onely to be layd up but also restord with a hundred fold seek not to shun transitory labour thou who hopest for a permanent good Thou whose desire should animate thee to suffer in conformity with Christ upon the Mount Calvary without all hope of quitting cross be sure not to quit patience that thou mayst be conforme to God in glory with an assurd confidence of arriving to so great joy If we believe all this to be true why put we not hand to work but stand like people in a dream How is it possible to have terrene things in any esteem if we make heavenly things a part of our belief Perchance we believe not so rightly as we ought Wilt thou know how thy mouth belyes thy hart when thou affirmest that heavenly things are only great if thy fortunes amounted to the value of a thousand pounds wouldst thou not willingly give them all if thou wert perswaded that by so doing thou couldst enhance them to a hundred thousand but how doth it appear that we hold heavenly goods more valuable since we are loath even being put in mind of the advantage to give what men both joyfully and of their own accord give for the base trumpery of the earth a hireling toyles all day long for a poor salary a souldier exposeth himself to a thousand deaths for anothers kingdome and we for the glory of God and our own purchase of the Empyre of heaven cannot watch somtimes one hour pray with Christ as it behooveth Let us despise base petty trifles that we may receive immense rewards It is not so estimable in it self to receive litle as to expect great matters O lover and zealot of God be sure to thirst breath after so great a good but regard not so much thy own repose and commodity as that thou shalt there securely love God without fear of interruption and the greater thy glory is the more shalt thou love him I am bound to thank thee o God of truth for joyning the reward of our labours with the love of thee and the desire of my wil which is nothing els but thy love The VII Chapter Of suffering death HOW much o Lord doth thy beneficence transcend mans hope and expectation since those very things which he accounts the greatest of evils and natures penalty prove to thy faithfull an unparalleld benefit He esteems it the worst of evils to dye and it is a great good without which we shal never arrive to the fruition of all good Thou dost very fondly o man in declining death which is indeclinable and not declining tepidity and faultines which may be declind For death hath no evil it which life gave not the sin of Adam caused in death but was not so powerful as to make it evil this dammage only proceeds from thy sin Avoid sin culpable negligence death wil be a thing desirable Men fear little and regard les the death of the soul which only is evil and may be avoided but the death of the body which is not evil and cannot be avoided they seek to shun though it be rather to be desird then that we adhere to this wicked world O the madnes of men who abuse play as it were bopeep with that precept of Christ about loving our enemyes while they care for none but the world who hates us is our professd enemy why do we affect this fleeting life which flyes us and do not affect that permanent life which expects us Why are we so sollicitous for our temporal life which we cannot retain and neglect eternal which we may obtain we may have life everlasting if we wil we shal loose this transitory whether we wil or no and notwithstanding all this men wil not do profitably for eternal what they do unprofitably for this temporal they covet not the first and they dread the death of this second as one would do a mischief Death moreover is a rare invention of Gods mercy for it easeth us of all the molestations of this life and takes away an eternity of miseries What a pittiful thing would it be if we were for all eternity subject to the necessities of rising daily and going to bed of eating of cold and heat of toyl and sicknes of seeking our sustenance of carking caring of suffering affronts or spending our whole life in a sordid and laborious drudgery what a misery would it be if one were to be a â—orter another a husband man a third a smith a fourth a servant and this for tearm â—ithout all end or respit many that were â—otoriously wicked sought death and made away with themselves merely to avoid these inconveniencies at least let us not dread it that it may be a passage to future felicity and for both these respects let us patiently accept it When God beheld us involved by the sin of Adam in such a labyrinth of woes he in his most indulgent clemency invented for our good the devise of dying that our calamities might not
be perpetual combining in the same thing a penalty and a benefit justice mercy Therfore because death is so great a good so proper and secure an effect of his goodnes he would not have it lyable to mans free wil or the hatred of an enemy For although it be in any ones power to bereave thee of life no body not even the uncon troulable violence of kings can bereave thee of death This is the property of things of the best quality to be out of the reach of humane power not to be obnoxious to anothers pleasure If one were entangled in any one danger or incumbrance it would be no smal content to find a meanes how to evade it why do we then grieve or dread death which is the gate wherby we may rid our selves of the hazards and incumbrances of this life Many for a meer puntillio of worldly glory have sought and covetted it at least for the glory of heaven let us not fear it O immortal God who wast born not to live for thou wast life eternal as now thou art but to dye a most mortal and bitter death for me why should I that am mortal be unwilling to dye to live a vital eternal and most pleasant life with thee and for accomplishment of thy wil since the desire of a christian is to be with Christ I know not why he should not desire death since but by it he cannot come to that fruition What misery can death bring or what happines can it bereave him of who is not besotted upon the world but hath placed all his felicity in heaven but besides this ocean of content which flowes from the sight and fruition of our beloved it hath moreover this advantage that it puts us out of further danger of offending God Death then is not evil which takes away all evil But if it be evil and an enemy to mankind why do not men treat it like an evil and as one would treat an enemy I wish we would proceed in this manner with it and deal no otherwise then with a foe forecasting that we carry nothing about us which he may make booty of or give him cause of triumphing over us Souldiers are wont to secure their provisions and baggage or els quite spoil them that they may not be serviceable to their enemyes We must leave no plunder for death but if there be any thing subject to its rapine it must eyther be wholly abandoned or sent before us with a safe convoy to heaven where all will be throughly secured We must keep no spoiles about us in which it may glory but the luggage of our flesh and we must extenuate it by fasting labour and other pennances that he sieze it not entire If death be evil and adverse to us let us resist it and object a buckler by relinquishing things and all affection to them that its wounds may bite the les upon us if death be evil let us make it good by doing good Why should we dread death more then our selves since it cannot be worse then we are evil yea it is we that make it bad because we do not become good Let us do this now when we have time and may do what we shal wish at its hour we had don and cannot A little respit only remaines for labour and in comparison of eternity not so much as an instant Behold now so many years of our life are past and those which remain are no longer But death is not evil in it self but rather good and we should be very good if we did imitate it and practised what it puts in ure by dispoyling our selves of all things so that if nothing were grateful and delectable in this world it would be pleasing and savory to our pallat He only needs fear death who loves other things and not Christ He is not a faithful servant who refuseth to appear in the presence of his master If I did love thee o Lord I should not have such a horrour of death for it would be contentiue to me to behold thee face to face and cast my self into thy embracements rejoicing that thy wil were accomplishd in me otherwise I play but the hypocrite when I daily beg that thy wil may be done in earth as it is in heaven Thy pleasure was to dye not that we might be immortal in this mortality but that we might dye wel by leading a better life Grant me grace that as thy wil is to be fulfilld in my death though against my wil so I may wil and death fulfil it in a good death by a better and more perfect life I give thee thanks o most benign Lord for this benefit of death as thy wisdome hath disposed it I give thee thanks that I am to dye and that I know not when or where or how I am to dye The certainty of death is good and comfortable to me it being a secure passage to bring me to thy sight and rid me of the miseries of this life and make me despise its deceitful and counterfeyt goods What man if he have but any one grain of wit although he were sure never to experience any adversity but were to be successful in all the contingencies of this life would not contemn it and all its goods since he must needs see that he is to quit them all in death which is wholly unavoydable In which moment all past joyes all present goods now to be relinquishd are no more then if they never had enjoyd a being nay they are les conducible for their very relinquishment wil prove a torture That only which man neyther loves nor possesseth wil not afflict him in that hour of affliction The uncertainty also of the manner place and time of dying is acceptable to me that I may more certainly serve thee o God in all requisite manner time and place as thy worth and dignity doth require This is a divine disposal which breeds in us a certain sollicitude of a better life by reason of the uncertain condition of a contingent death I am throughly perswaded o Lord that I know not whether I am worthy of love or hatred and how it wil fare with me after this life neither do I covet to know because it is expedient for me to be ignorant of it according to the ordainment of thy wisdome But I will not therfore more dread death then desire thee and confide in thy mercies I accept most willingly its great uncertainty this being most certain that it is enough for me that thou art most merciful and a cordial lover of me and both canst and wilt save me if I but humbly trust in thee What imports it that I know not how and when and where I am to dye if I be assurd that thou dyedst for me and dyedst the death of the cross and at noon day and betwixt two thieves upon Mount Calvary to clear all doubt of thy love towards me that I may
not to make thee the subiect of my action but not so much as the obiect of my memory O most loving God how could I behave my self worse towards my capital enemy then I do towards thee not so much as daigning thee a look when thou meetest me and meetest me so often though thou be stil ingratiating thy self by new favours and services O how continually o God art thou present in me and yet I so little present to thee and take so little notice of thee thy essence penetrates each part of me much more intirely then the sun beames penetrate each part and parcel of a transparent christal more perfectly then our soul is diffused through our body The presential assistance of thy wisdome provides for me and playes it self the purveyer that nothing may be wanting and if I do any good that it may impart a reward thou committest not this to the intercourse of thy Angels only and their relation but thou thy self becomest my overseer Thy power carryes me in thy bosome as a nurse or motherdoth her dearest child and because these duties of being in me of seing me of preserving me in my being are necessarily annexd to thy divinity thou wouldst have me engaged to thee o good IESV for a voluntary presence and there being but one way wherein thou couldst necessarily be absent thou didst invent a meanes even in that to be also present in thy most holy body that thou mightest be present with me both corporally and spiritually O ungrateful soul why wilt thou not be thankful to so loving a Lord and if thou canst not bodily be present with this divine Sacrament be not forgetful at least in spirit and thought of so benefical a soveraign who hath made thee his tabernacle and place of residence Carry o soul respect to thy self and the Altar of thy mind where God dwels by grace which thou perchance now partakest of and woe be to thee if thou dost not the divinity being there communicated We reverence inanimate things and deservedly which are imbrued in the blood of Christ but why do we not the same to a part of our soul spirit where the H. Ghost diffuseth himself we dare do no unseemly action before an Altar where the sacred body of Christ our Lord is kept nor darest thou do les before thy self because thy mind as thou maist wel hope is by grace the Altar and throne of God he residing in it with greater pleasure then in a Pix of gold How dost thou compose and recollect thy self when thou art to receive the Body of Christ habituate thy self allwayes in such a modesty such a decency since God is thy guest lodging not in thy body only but within thy soul If the Body of Christ being thy guest thou compose thy self with such decency thou must stil retain the same since the spirit of God becomes resident in thy spirit since the Father and the Son come to thee and take up in thee their dwelling place Whether in publick or private comport thy self allwayes after the same manner God beholds thee God is nigh thee God is with thee God is within thee If Christ should come visibly to thee when thou art all alone in thy chamber wouldst thou in his presence put thy self in any les seemly posture or rather stand in a reverend submissive composd manner trembling at the aspect of such an awful majesty Behold the divinity is allwayes present with thee and we owe it no les dutyes of respect The divinity is present not after one manner but many by filling and surrounding thee with his boundles essence as the ocean doth a spunge by carrying thee in the eye of his all seeing providence by sustaining thee by his power by cherishing imbracing and adopting thee for his child by his heavenly grace O soul why sendest thou thy desires in so long a pilgrimage since God is so nigh at hand why dost thou aspire to other joyes he being present thou hast a speedy redress for all thy miseries why art thou contristated a refuge sanctuary against all thy calamities is close by what needst thou fear let all thy affection spend it self in embracing and kissing this thy most loving parent in whose bosome thou art nurturd and brooded up Consider thy self more neerly allyed to God then to thy brother then to thy Father then to thy mother for the kindred and allyance betwixt thee and God is greater then betwixt a child and his parent Let him then be allwayes present to thee who is present after so many wayes As a mirrour becomes the image of that which is present to it so a holy soul in some manner will become divine if it have the divinity present with it This presence of God is the vital action of grace a holy soul is so long in an actual and waking exercise of life as it loves God and is mindful of him whether it be employd in the contemplation of his perfections or seek actively to advance his greater glory For as God is not only present to us by his essence knowledg but also by his power and activity so the best method of framing the presence of God is to consider him playing the good Operarius and directing his actions to our behoof Who wil not become active on Gods behalf since he works all in all for ours but yet though a soul surcease from this she shal not therfore dye by sin but wil be like one that is a sleep not dead but yet scarse alive as not enjoying the use of life so a soul that is in oblivion of her God though she be not voyd of life yet she is in so sound a sleep that she reaps no benefit of her spiritual vitalityes O how long-lifd wil one be that is stil mindful of God! o how many ages wil he complete which even those that otherwise are held spiritual do ordinarily forfeyt this presence of God is also the sense of grace for without it the soul lyes like one in a palsey The palsey is a disease not a death but it deprives ones limbs of all sense and vital motion life and grace are then to smal purpose when the memory of God is benumd and obstupifyed whether it be in action or contemplation One palm tree becomes fruitful merely at the presence of another and the soul at the presence of God is loaden with all variety of fruit Without the presence of the sun all is buryed in obscurity nothing doth partake of beauty by the presence of God a soul is illustrated and is made most comely to the eye The elements cannot brook to be absent from their center and no les is a soul carried to her center of repose God As a stone if it be detaynd in the ayre keeps alwayes a propension to the earth and if it be left to it self tends thither without any more adoe so a soul enamoured upon God even when it is detaind from its
he was dead would bequeath to us a pledg of his love by receiving a wound with a speare thou also in this short death must give such an earnest-penny of thy affection And by this meanes as Christ in his sleep of death merited at thy hands by shedding water and blood a special pledg of love at his harts wound so thou also in thy death of sleep shalt even then merit at the hands of Christ for such a precedent desire and disposition Let this be an argument that while thou sleepest thy hart wateheth not unlike cranes who while they sleep carry a stone in their tallon the fall wherof forthwith awakes them The IV. Chapter That we must rise fervorously to our morning prayer IF with loathing thou didst betake thy self to rest thou wouldst with a cheerful alacrity rise in the morning to thy task neither would it be necessary for the master of the family to hire so early his workmen Thou wilt shew thy self too effeminate if thou be not valiant against sleep but suffer thy self to be vanquishd by a thing of all others the most unmanly being chaind hand and foot like a captive without tye in such sort that thou canst neither help thy self nor others but must be content to sit in the shadow of death It would not be needfull that the voice of thy beloved knocking at the dore of thy hart should rouze thee conceive the sound and pulse to be the noise of thy spouse calling and inuiting thee with most sweet and amorous language to open the dore and he cals thee his sister his love his dove his unsported Open to me saith he o my sister my love my dove my unblemishd Love makes him call thee so often his neither can he be satiated with calling thee so O Lord what beholdst thou in me that can so transport and enamour thee can it be reasonable that I disgust thee for a little ease but if thou hasten not o my soul to open because thou art his and for love of him do it at least out of mere compassion To move thee more forcibly he presently adds because my haire is full of dew and my locks of the drops of the night Thou wouldst not demur to open even to a stranger and an enemy in this pitteous plight and why not to thy God thy lover who does it all for thy sake Beware he depart not if thou linger What can be imagind more attractive and comfortable then this voice of the spouse knocking so friendly that he may bannish all lazynes from a pious soul who will not be more confounded then was Vrias to lye in bed while Christ stands expecting not under a pavillon but in the open ayre exposed to the injuries of the night Robbers stick not to rise by night to make their booty and massacre others and wilt thou when the good of thy soul and Gods glory lyes at stake be so tardy the Angel caling Peter when he was a sleep said rise quickly Thou art more then dead when thou art buried in sleep imitate at least the dead in rising In the twinckling of an eye in a moment shall the dead bodies arise at the command of an Angel IESVS will not have thee be flower when he cals then when an Angel The heavenly spirits take it ill they being by nature most quick and agile to see any one whom they awake any whit sluggish or fearing themselves with stretchings and yawnings and they waken us most willingly beâ—â—use the very sight of this drowzines so opâ—osite to their agility is not a little offensive to â—hem A certain servant of Christ one of our society by name Iohn Carrera was every morning before day called by his good Angel to go to praier but this heavenly monitor once absented himself for many dayes till being appeased with continual praiers and long fasts he returned at length to his charitable office admonishing Iohn that for this reason he with drew his comfortable presence because being once overcome with the drowzy wearines of the precedent dayes labour he had not risen with such speed to his accustomed devotions So inconsiderable a fault if it were a fault so highly offended the Angel although it were not perceived by his conscience which was so tenderly nice and delicate They esteem the fervor and prayers of us miscreants so much that they deem not their own officiousnes to equalize the others worth and give us a gentle correction that there may not be so much as a false shadow of idlenes where we traffique in such real goods Therfore be not slow at the hour of rising labour with great speed to overtake any one that is before thee that thou maist be the first that our Lord coming loaden with his guifts shal light upon so to have the first choise and handsale of his graces he disburdening himself upon the first he meets Thou shouldst run towards Christ charged with his cross to ease him of it and be crucified in his place run to him fraught with grace to be enriched by him What soul can be so sensles and prodigal as not to rise with all speed to receive so many guifts and impart kisses to her spouse how can she be said to love God if she return not swifter then any thunderbold to love her beloved whom over night she desired so vehemently One must rise more expeditly then if the bed and bed clothes were all in a flame one will rise more expeditly if the fire of love be enkindled in his hart Procure at that instant to make amends for the vacancy of sleep wherin thou couldst not actuate thy self in the love of God by a most fervorous elevation of mind by a most flagrant charity and a total holocaust of thy self the perfectest that hitherto thou ever didst offer upon the altar of thy hart Suppose thy self in such a condition as if in that moment of thy awaking thou wert newly created by God to love and serve him for that day alone for that sole end is this daies life granted to thy use If one that is in a state of beatitude were annihilated by God and forth with created anew with all his qualities and former perfections with what impetuousnes of will in that very moment would he engulph himself in the abiss of the divinity do thou endeavour to put on a like fervour after this thy annihilation by sleep and resuscitation by awaking How deep a sense and profound reverence did Adam and the Angels conceive â—â—wards their Creator in the first instant of â—â—eir perceived creation imitate the B. Virâ—â—n who being in the first moment of her conâ—â—ption created in grace and priviledgd which â—e perfect use of reason with what intenâ—â—nes of affection did she cast her self into the â—â—mes of almighty God what thanks did Christ our Lord render to his heavenly Father â—â— the first instant of the hypostatical union yea with how great love did he then particuâ—arly think