you cease to be all that you are Have a great desire to loose your self and to go out of your self and that your being be annihilated and consummated in that of Iesus who is in you This is the point whereto you must arrive if you will that God should possess you Thirdy Desire and require that Iesus Christ destroy in you all that is contrary to God that he establish in you the Kingdom of God that he take from you the dominion which self-love the vanity of your nature and your inclination usurp over you and the creatures Fourthly Resign your self to the will of Iesus Christ who by this adorable sacrament of Love will receive you into himself and place you in his life and his being Abandon then your self to the desire that he hath to possess you a desire as great and perfect as the Love wherewith he gives himself to you is infinite Pray him to destroy in this present life the being that you use and abuse that by the power of his spirit and love and by the vertue of this ineffable sacrament he may make you what he is that is to say Love Life and Truth Behold what God requires of you if we regard intentively the essence and the excellency of this mysterie if by the spirit of Faith we weigh the effects it produces in us it will be easie to acknowledge them and soon shall we be constrained to confess that this sacrament of Love doth appropriate us wholly to God draws us from our selves and the world and separates us from the commerce of creatures that we may be knit in heart and spirit to Iesus Christ despising all things for his love and glory so shall be verified the word of the Son of God to his Father in the excess of his Love speaking to him not onely of his Apostles but of all good Christians They are not of the world even as I am not of the world This is the spirit of Christianity the excellency of this divine estate That we may the better remember this you shall see in a little Picture First the grace and spirit of Christianity consecrates us to God and imprints in us a character of the power of Iesus Christ to whose Empire we must be subject for ever and must undergo to all eternity both in heaven and earth the state of service and subjection to the spirit grace and conduct of Iesus Secondly The grace of Christianity makes us the children of God by mercy and gives us right of inheritance to the greatness and true glory of Iesus Christ. By this grace we have no more part in the world because it is the heritage of the true children of Adam but we have right to the Possession of God who is himself the heritage of his children Thirdly This grace draws our spirits our hearts and our affections from our selves and all creatures to unite us to God it gives us right to enter into familiarity and alliance with the Son of God who making himself man by the Incarnation would be amongst us to the end that we might be with him He enters into society with men invests himself with our miseries infirmities to communicate to us his life his spirit and greatness Thus by the grace of this mysterie we go out of our own Interests to enter into the Interest of Jesus Christ whereof the Apostle speaking of the things of the world he saith I count them but dung that I may win Christ. Fourthly In brief by the state of Christianity we are advanced to the participation of God who will be all in us that we may be in him and Jesus Christ by his body and blood which he giveth us in the Eucharist doth elevate and unite us to God makes us live by his life communicates to us all that he is that he may be all things to us that the world may be nothing to us Thus the grace of Christianity unites us to Jesus Christ replenishes us with his life and spirit makes us another himself and therefore obliges us to go out of our selves and the world to be in Christ Jesus I know we must be in the world and make use of the world so long as it shall please God to continue us in this place of captivity but we must not be of the world we must live here as in a place of passage and make use of all in the world as of a winter garment ready to put it off when the Sun of righteousness shall come to his meridian when it shall please God Let us use all the creatures as a necessary medicine to the present state of our infirmities and occasions but let it be withall loathsom unto us as violating our Love which desires nothing but God which takes delight in nothing but God which aspires to nothing and hopes in nothing but God The conclusion of the first Part What the life of a Christian ought to be Behold here the Excellencies of Christianity which we have proposed in few words as having no further design nor intention in this volume then to shew that the life of a Christian ought to be conformable to the state of grace and dignity whereto he is advanced by Iesus Christ. Now to enter into this knowledge it suffices that we see what we are This is that which I design'd to demonstrate in this first part proposing as in a little Tablet the essence dignity and eminency of the grace of Christianity which I have done briefly expressing onely the principal Truth of this subject leaving the rest to the piety and consideration of those that would profit thereby Now if we look back with the eye of Faith upon that which hath been said we shall clearly see what a Christian life ought to be and shall know that the design of Iesus Christ informing his Church hath been to consecrate to appropriate to himself and to unite himself divinely to our souls and to separate them from themselves and from all creatures that by a happy revolution he may be in us and we in him we may live in him and of him as he lives in his Father of the life of his Father that so he may restore us to his Father and re-unite us to himself from whom we were separated by him by being our own and having relation to the Creature Herein is comprised the perfection of a Christian life whereof we cannot speak more then in the words of St. Paul ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God a passage which contains an apparent contradiction If we are dead how can our life be hid in God who is the true life If we are in God who is the life of our souls how are we dead The Apostle meanes that our life is life and death our life is a life of grace which is the true life of souls and much better then the soul is the life of our bodies and the proper
effect of the grace of Christianity is to operate in us that which natural death doth By death the soul is separated from the body and all things in the world So grace should separate us from our selves from all things from sin that being wholly so separated we may be dead to our selves and to all things that we may live in God and of God This expression of the Apostle further shews all the properties of a Christian life the end whereof is that being separated from all we may be in Iesus Christ that is to say united by an indissoluble Vnion to Iesus Christ life of his life and be referred with him to the glory of the most holy Trinity The life of a Christian St. Paul saith is hid because it is indeed hid from the sight of the World which neither sees it as it is nor esteems it and because it is little humble and abject disdains to behold to take notice of it as unworthy the name and society of men They that will live Christianly will not subject themselves to the corruption of the men of this age so this life is hid from the sight and more from the power of this world for the soul that liveth christianly is above all humane power and insensible to all contempt and confusion and as the Diamond continues entire and strengthened by the violence of blowes so the perfect christian remains more content in the violence of Temptation more assured in the motions of disgrace more firm amidst the batteries of afflictions even Prosperity changeth not his spirit he is alike in all things for by grace and true Christian vertues the soul is raised above all things and lives in God Ye are dead and yet your life is hid with Iesus Christ in God Such is the life of a christian according to St. Paul a life that imitates that of Iesus Christ upon earth who according to the Oracles of the Prophets was despised and rejected of men a Man of sorrow and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we esteemed him not When Hell the World Devill sinners thought to triumph over him and ravish both his honour and life at the same time he triumphs over them shewing that he hath power as he saith to lay down his life and he hath power to take it again at his pleasure Thus the life of Iesus Christ is hid from the eyes of men who know him not and from their power seeing he triumphs over his Enemies over death and sin Such ought to be the life of a Christian. St. Paul saith the same in other termes when he exhorts the Ephesians that they put off concerning the former conversation the old Man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirits of their mind and that they put on the new Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness This is the first Protestation we make in Baptisme in which solemn action before that we are consecrated to the holy Trinity received and made the children of God we make a particular protestation to renounce Adam and the World and adhere to Iesus Christ to separate our selves from the one to unite our selves to the other So in this action so holy and happy we uncloath our selves of the one to cloath us again with the other that is the first step we make into the state of Christianity according to St. Paul And if we believe his Doctrine we see that the perfection of a Christian and all his happinesse consists in adhering to Iesus Christ to be united to him and cloathed with him For as all the grandeur of humane nature which was chosen in the Mysterie of the Incarnation to be the nature of God consists in being united to the word which subsisteth in him and operates by him so all the perfection of a christian soul consists in dwelling in Iesus Christ in adhering to him and operating by him all the perfection of a christian soul consists in that it dwells in Christ that it adheares to him that it lives of his life and operates not but by his spirit Now this cannot be but when the Soul is divided from it self and from all creatures for according to St. Paul We are to put off the old man with his deeds and to put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him Whence it followeth that abnegation and uncloathing is the principal point of christian perfection so necessary that St. Bernard saith It had been better for us never to have been then to dwell in our selves and to our selves for the greatest misfortune of the soul is to see it self separated from God But God comes not into neither dwells in the soul till such time as it goeth out of it self uncloathes and annihilates it self And the greater its annihilation is the more it makes place for God If it take but little away God fills it with little if it deprive it self of much God fills it much and without doubt he will take it up and dwell wholly in it if the soul do annihilate and wholly uncloath it self We see and adore this proceeding of God in the Mysterie of the Incarnation the cause and example of the life of our souls For the eternall word choosing humane nature to unite himself unto it and to operate in and by it our redemptions would uncloath it of its own substance and humane person to shew us that we are not acceptable to God if we do not abandon our selves and that if we divest our selves of our selves and deprive our selves of all created things God will fill us with divine things for Grace as well as Nature abhorres vacuity Let us learn then to deprive our selves of humane things that we may be inriched with divine Let us go out of our selves and quit the commerce that we have with the creatures to be in Iesus Christ to enter into society and communion with God Let us renounce our own spirits and government to leave our selves to that of Iesus Christ and suffer him to live and raign in us according to what he truly designed of us In brief let us divest our selves of our selves to re-invest our selves with the Sonne of God Herein consists the happiness of our souls and that Christian perfection that we ought to search for here upon earth The necessity and practise whereof are in the following Treatises THE SECOND PART Wherein are proposed the sundry Motives which oblige Christians to Perfection CHAP. I. The Obligation that we have to acquire true Vertues wherein consists the life of the Soul and the inward life of a Christian. MAN being in honour abideth not but is compared unto the Beasts that perish Thus David describing the deplorable estate of man after sin a sad condition a miserable fall which hath deprived man
to such a point that it was necessary the Son of God should be made man that God immortall should be clothed with our mortality to purchase for us by his blood and death a power to serve him to merit for us by his life and sufferings the graces necessary for us to produce good thoughts to obtain for us permission to present our selves to God and before him to re-instate us with a hope of pardon and trust in his Grace Man as a Sinner is so unprofitable and uncapable that without Gods particular grace without an effect of his divine mercy he can do no good work nor hope for any blessing or favour and if he receive any if he find himself replenished with love and hope or capable of any good it is onely by the bounty of God who though justly provoked stayes the effects of his Iustice that we might tast the fruits of his inexhaustible goodness Considering these motives and truths let us stand here before God as guilty of divinae Magistatis laesae Let us look upon our selves as sinners and we shall clearly see that by this estate we are left to Gods Iustice that we must of necessity leave our selves to his conduct and divine will For if for civil crimes men worthy of death are left to the Lawes of Iustice and the will of their Prince who will dispose of their life and goods as pleases him certainly man as a sinner worthy of death ought to be left to the will of his God to do with him according to the rigour of his Iustice or effects of his mercy This is the first practick to be learned from this Motive for the soul in the consideration of these truths ought to do that in love humility and choyce which she cannot avoid upon constraint A Christian as the child of Adam and so a sinner must put himself before God resign himself wholly to him and with an humble submission and contentment of spirit receive from his most wise hand all the effects of his divine conduct and accept with a resignation good and evill privation and enjoyment all that may happen unto him Above all he must be careful to continue in a profound humility before God exposing himself to the raies of his divine mercy to move him to pardon From this Principle we draw a second practise seeing the need we have of God For considering our selves to be so wretched and miserable we are obliged to seek a remedy for our evills Now as this cannot be found but in God the repairer of our faults the freer of our souls it will follow that by the knowledge of our miseries and the weight of the iniquities which oppress us we are driven to have recourse unto God even by the same exigence whereunto sinne hath reduced us and are obliged to seek out God Every way that man considers himself he finds himself in a want of God and consequently obliged to seek God as the onely happiness of his soul the onely remedy of his evils The better to understand this we must remember that by sinne man is equally miserable in two considerations the rigour and violence of sinne which oppress him and the evills and disorders whereinto sinne precipitates him from which two states he cannot get but by possessing of God For the first faith teaches us that man cannot get out of sin do whatsoever he can if God himself come not to relieve and deliver him Man of himself may lose himself may plunge himself may sell himself may enslave himself but he cannot free himself nor bestow himself but by the mercy of God who gave us his Son to re-establish all things in us as the Apostle affirms Now this re-establishment is done only by the spirit of love and charity which is the spirit of God in us given to us From whence we see that he that will avoid his miseries and shake off the yoke of sin must necessarily possess God who onely can free him Hence we may observe what a work the conversion of a soul to God is and the freeing of a sinner by what way soever it is wrought in man To apprehend properly the importance of this work of grace we must say that he that would be converted and delivered from sin must not onely go out of his sin but must also possess God and consequently by the same Motive that he desires to go out of his sin he is obliged to dispose himself to possess God and to become worthy of so holy an heritage for to confess his sin to turn to God to be delivered from his sin and to possess God is all one thing wherein appears the need we have to seek God and how seriously a Christian ought to labour in an affaire wherein his eternal safety doth consist The second state of our miseries doth no lesse oblige us to seek God then the former for by the effect of sinne and the Tyranny it exercises over us we are continually tossed about disorder'd made vagabonds and precipitated from imperfection to imperfection from sin to sin from trouble to trouble This evil hath no remedy what resolution soever the soul takes what diligence soever it useth what habit soever it assumes it will never find calme rest or deliverance till it hath found and possesses God and be possessed of him Never shall she be in true liberty Christian liberty the liberty of the children of God until she possesses the spirit of God wherein they deceive themselves who to acquire the peace of the soul and true liberty of the spirit use a thousand practises and a multitude of exercises peace and true Christian liberty being not to be found but in the possession of God Many things indeed that we speak and do serve to lessen our trouble and thraldom but not one can give true liberty or the peace of the spirit but the possession of God The reason is demonstrative nothing can have peace liberty and repose but in its proper Centre God is the Centre of the soul therefore in God alone is her peace liberty and repose and as long as she is with God and possesses him she is in liberty and repose no longer Whence we evidently conclude that while the soul is separated from God she is tyrannized over by the malice of sin continually drawn into circumstances terms and subversions And souls that make shew to search after the truth and to live in the purity of Christianity if they seek not God purely and seriously if he dwelleth not in the bottom of their hearts shall never live but in disquiet and in trouble in scruples and in Pannick terrours For it 's an infallible maxime That man can never rest but in the possession of God the contre of his soul. In this we see the strict Obligation that we have to seek God and to study Christian perfection which consists in the possession of God This is the resentment the desire and demand of the
her own motions To dwell in our selves is to think of our selves to take care of our selves to have a continuall regard to our selves and our self-Interests to use the powers of our souls for our selves and our own satisfaction and not purely to please God To love thus is to wear the maske and false appearance of vertue but not to have the reality By these Principles of piety it is easie to see how dangerously they deceive themselves who speaking of Religious souls who are in a most pure and perfect estate and according to the eminency of their vocation say they ought to be night Christians as Stars in the Firmament and perswade others that they are not obliged to the perfection of inward vertues and that it is enough for them to become punctuall and to live with order and fidelity in their exteriour conduct making them believe that they are capable of no more that this self-desertion is above their strength nay that it were folly so to leave themselves to live in such a general manner of abandoning themselves This is a manifest errour for not onely the religious estate but even that of Christianity obligeth all Christians to the practise of these vertues seeing they are obliged to be perfect according to the Commandement of Iesus Christ as doth easily appear by all the Motives handled in this second Part. Now if all they who aim at perfection in any profession whatsoever must enter into this conduct of grace and subjection if they must live devesting themselves to obey God more perfectly and to live the life of God which is the life of a true christian the true life of grace what ought those souls to do who by particular graces and allurements of speciall favour are called by God cherished and inriched with his gifts O how great will these obligations appeare to those that consider them O how ought such souls to take care and be vigilant to co-operate with the designs of God upon them and to become faithful according to the estate and fulness of grace communicated to them This would require a long deduction for nothing is of more importance or needs a more ample discourse to content our spirits and satisfie our piety But it shall suffice that we shew the fundation and principles thereof of which we shall now speak The conclusion of the second Part. The care and vigilancy which a Soul must have which seeks perfection and would live in true subjection to the grace and conduct of Iesus Christ. WE have cleerly enough deduced and demonstrated by divers motives the obligation all Christans have to seek perfection and wholly to subject themselves to the spirit and conduct of God yet must we not understand this Doctrine so generally but that there is something more to be done and that we fail not in our care and vigilancy to cooporate with the work of God in us and to become faithfull to his conduct and here we will shew what this care and vigilancy ought to be Let us first enter into consideration of the excellencies of our soul that knowing it we may be ravished with its beauty elevated and excited to conserve it carefully in perfection according to the designe of God upon us This knowledge is not easie for the soul is such a lively Image of the Divinity and God hath invested her with so many lights that our spirits are too feeble to sustain the beams thereof and to penetrate the splendor of this beauty If we will speak of her we must say that she so perfectly represents her Prototype God that as we cannot better comprehend God then in averring he is incomprehensible so we cannot enter better into this knowledge of the perfect beauties of our soul then in saying she cannot be known For all that we can say of her is below her so neer doth she approach to the infinite greatness and ineffable perfections of her Creator The highest that we can say of her that seems to imply the last draught of her perfection is that she is a capacity of God an Image wherein the perfections of the Divinity are engraved so as we may compare it to a Seal wherein the Image of a Prince is perfectly and artificially cut As the Seal is capable of receiving the soft wax applied to it and imprints thereon a second Image so our soul which is the Image of God is capable of receiving God and receiving him once she bears a continuall Image of him his true resemblance The soul therefore in as much as she is the Image is also a capacity of God since as the Image she is capable of receiving God And this capacity is the ground of her being and containing in it all her perfections and beauty comprehending all that can be said of her It is not hard to penetrate this truth if we consider the designs of God in the creation of the soul for Faith teaches us that God alone is the end of our soul her fulness that he hath created her to enjoy his greatness to associate her into his glory to communicate to her his divine perfections In pursuit of this designe it was that he gave her so great an amplitude and capacity that she cannot be filled but with God which caused Saint Bernard to say that our soul may be occupated by all things in the world but that she cannot be filled with any but God who created her for himself alone to fill to live in her and to advance her to the enjoyment not of gifts not of grace onely but of glory and of the essence of Divinity All this begins upon earth and is consummated and perfected in heaven indeed it cannot be in heaven if it begin not upon earth since the soul after death enjoyes but what she hath merited in her life for we see that here below the soul receives her God by grace she receives him in his loving communication and she is filled of God by his Spirit which dwelleth in her and in Heaven she possesseth him fully by glory By this possession all her capacity is filled according to all Gods designes upon her Thus Saint Iohn We know that when he shall appear we shall be like to him we shall see him as he is Now we cannot see God and be like to him in glory which is a pemanent estate without possessing him and we cannot possess him but in this capacity which is given us by God which is the foundation of our being and all the perfection of our soul so great a perfection that we conceive it farther then we know the greatness of God For as God is great this capacity is great ample and admirable This deserves profound consideration and may serve to all men as a powerfull motive to sever themselves from all upon the earth and to seek God only for whom alone we are created who alone is our fulness This truth discovers the favour we receive from this infinite
these truths annihilating all the spirits and humbling all the Seraphims nothing but man shuts his eyes against so great a light Iesus Christ and these Seraphims humble themselves in the throne of their glory and men glorifie themselves sitting on the Dunghill of their vices O hardness and obstinacy of humane spirits O the power of the blind ambition of men who see and confess these truths who bear the marks of them who feel the violence of them yet remain insensible triumph in their wickedness and refuse to act by love and vertue what they shall be constrained to do by Iustice and rigour for those who exalt themselves shall be humbled but humbled by the revengefull hand of Almighty God Let us open our eyes and acknowledge let us descend into our selves and from the bottom of our nothing cry to God that he would give us that light of truth Let us adore this truth of Iesus Christ and let us resign our selves over to his power and invoke the force and spirit of his humility that it may consume in us the vanity and ambition of the spirit of Adam that lives in us and communicate to us so necessary a vertue The third Disposition CHAP. X. Of an effectuall desire to be GOD'S AS the spirit of Faith is great in us so let us make use thereof and esteem God according to the same proportion and enter into this Disposition absolutely necessary to all souls who go the wayes of grace and abandon themselves wholly to our Lord. This Disposition is a pure and perfect desire to belong to God at any price whatsoever and to be his purely without any other regard then of the greatness and soveraign Majesty of God who deserves to be loved served and adored because he is God and shutting the eye to all considerations to all hopes and all profit we must say and bear in heart this truth I will be Gods for his own sake This desire will not be so difficult as it appeares if faith be living in us and if we bear a true esteem of God But we must proceed further this desire must not be in the mouth onely but in the heart to be pure it must regard nothing but God to be perfect it must be infinite without limitation or restriction as if we should say I will be Gods in all that he wills and in sign of the perfection whereinto I desire to enter I will know nothing of all that he desireth of me I content my self to be in a bare abandoning of my self to all the thoughts all the designes all the Counsels he hath formed of me in the Cabinet of his eternall wisdom to all the thoughts Iesus Christ had of me on the Altar of his Crosse sacrificing himself to the glory of his Father and offering vvith himself the souls of his Elect. I offer my self to him to be all that he vvill and to leave all the effects of his divine pleasure be it of Iustice or of love of abandoning or enjoying of abundance or privation of fervour or of drought In brief I will have no other desire but to be Gods to be all that he will that I should be This is the adorable estate into which the soul of Iesus Christ entred the first instant of the Mystery of the Incarnation as soon as it was united to the Word for in the same moment his soul produced an act of obligation of him to be wholly Gods wholly obedient to his divine decrees in all the wayes which he ordained upon him and upon his life in the wayes of humiliation of sufferings of privation cross and death This is also the estate and first disposition whereinto the soul must enter that seeks God and will live Christianly but she must remain herein with such stability and constancy that she may render her self immutable in regard of his disposition For in whatsoever change she finds her self she must never quit this disposition on the contrary it is herein that she must establish and settle her self more and more and all her care must be to bear it not in her mouth nor in her will but in the bottom of her heart and centre of her soul. We have said that this desire to be God's must be pure simple naked and absolute therefore to forme this desire and make it perfect we must not receive into our spirit any reason any consideration any interest but onely say and say it truly I will be Gods for Gods sake according as God will have me and in such manner as shall please him This Disposition thus explained teaches us that they who seek Christian perfection and faithfully resign themselves to Iesus Christ to live in the state that pleaseth him must not desire to know or understand what God will do with them nor what he will say to all the motions which they think or in all that they understand nor in all the diverse estates spirituall or temporall wherein they find themselves that is neither necessary nor profitable on the contrary to desire to know and understand all that passeth and examine whence it comes and whither it tends this were to draw her self out of resignation and to go out of the purity of this Disposition it is onely necessary that the soul have a great vigilancy to recive all of God and to receive it in the manner that God requires of her and to bear it with the spirit as he will and to make use of it with the purity that it merits In this point consists the fidelity of the soul and the perfection of this estate To facilitate this it is good for the soul to present her self often before God exciting in her self an efficacious desire to do the pure will of God and to do it in the disposition and manner that he requires without knowing what he will and she shall often offer her self to God for this end Moreover it is very profitable to offer our selves to God and to form a generall will to practise all sorts of good though we have no light nor feeling contenting our selves with a resignation to God and taking care to follow him and to co-operate faithfully with the graces and motions we receive from him It is a Maxime in Piety that the soul must not seek any sense any light nothing of particular but keep and conserve it self in a pure estate to be Gods to do his divine will and to render her self faithfull to his graces remembering that we have nothing to do in this world but to submit to the will of God to receive his gifts and to render them again unto him The fourth Disposition CHAP. XI Of the Purity of the Heart WE proceed in our designe of drawing the picture of a perfect Christian which consists in representing the principal vertues wherewith he must be invested and the dispositions wherein he must be to become fit to bear God and to live onely upon the spirit and grace of God
from all things without doubt if God operate you shall see all these effects and therefore the soul that will be perfect must narrowly look into all this and have an extraordinary vigilancy to become faithfull and attentive to the operations of God in her on one side to correspond thereto and to labour after the manner God inspires her with on the other to annihilate her self not the works of God for if we oppose not our selves to grace and the effects thereof if we do not annihilate the works of God in us God will certainly work great things in us But alas the wayes whereby we make use of devotion in this age are more capable to drive God away then to invite him into our hearts I shall describe them unto you The soul blinded with naturall love to her self desires to be brought up in the gifts of God she would enjoy him and would love what seems good and profitable to her she fills her self with divers desires she tyes her self thereto and will continually act and attain she puts her self into all employments and motions she seeks them she pleases her self with a satisfaction that her own love takes in things most holy and in the very operation of God she seeks her self therein she elevates her self thereto In this manner she opposes her self to the spirit of Iesus Christ and annihilateth the work of God who would onely live in her onely occupate her spirit onely possess her desiring by the power of his love to annihate in her all that is of her Iesus Christ would take away and this soul will add to God would dispossess and spoyl and she would acquire and possess Thus she hinders and destroyes the workes of God driving God out of her and out of her spirit to cause her own love to raign there her own satisfaction and will a vanity ordinary to such souls as are wholly consumed in the spirit of Adam They therefore who tend to perfection must go with all purity and simplicity they must seek nothing but God and to please God but above all they must be very circumspect and attentive to his inward operations having a great care and fidelity to leave the spirit to act by the grace of God in them As all this is very secret and interiour and often is in the very centre of the soul so must we take heed thereto and besides the vigilance necessary it is good from time to time to practise these ensuing acts First to give our selves to Iesus Christ to live in him and to bear the spirit and effects of this self-denyall after the manner that pleaseth him Secondly to renounce our selves our secret vanity and all that is in us opposite to grace and to the operations of God Thirdly to be attentive to the motions and operations of God in us especially when he acts by self-denyall and privation as well interiour as exteriour to co-operate therewith either by action if it be necessary or by consent of the soul giving her self to God to receive what God shall operate in her when the soul shall feel divers motions or meet several occasions to practise vertue she shall alwayes choose those where there shall be privation and self-denyall as the most assured way and the most acceptable to God most for the honour of Iesus Christ and most conformable to his humane life Fourthly she shall pray to Iesus Christ to vouchsafe to operate and put into her all that he wills and to annihilate in her all that he requireth to prevent in her by his light and love the time of death and judgement whereto he must annihilate the thoughts and judgements of men The abridgement of the third Part. CHAP. XIV Treating of the dependance of the Soul upon God IT is easie to see that amongst Christians even those who think they have vertue enough to fave them many deceive and altogether lose themselves taking the shadow of vertue for the substance apparence for truth like the Dog in the Fable who let go the good morsell he had hold of to catch a shadow these neglect the solid vertues and principall foundations of piety to insist on certain exteriour actions which have no substance but in the air of imagination they exercise themselves in morall vertues and despise the Christian they compose the exteriour and form their demeanour and neglect the interiour they fear to displease men and endeavour to satisfie their kindred and friends but care no more to please God then they fear to displease him they would seem good but care not to be so In a word in all things they choose the most beautifull and best and will have nothing but what is good but for their souls that which is least best contents them they seek but that which is necessary what gives them greatest liberty and satisfaction they embrace with all their heart God who is truth is not satisfied with these feignings and wills that we serve him in spirit and truth he detests a lye and curses those that serve him with the mouth onely if he love he will be beloved and as his love is most pure and perfect he will have ours to be such also Whence it is easie to comprehend that to be a perfect Christian and friend to God requires great qualities He must have a golden key that will enter into the Kings chamber he that will come to a royall feast must be clothed with a wedding garment lest he be bound hand and foot and cast into prison and utter darkness To be a perfect Christian is not so slight a business as some think it it belongs to God only to make a man just it is the work of his hand and greater then the creation of the world at least in this God shews himself more powerfull in his love and more admirable in his mercies Therefore when we speak of a good and perfect Christian we speak of Gods handy-work of a man worthy to be a Saint for to be saved and to be Saint is one and the same thing Now what ought the soul of a Saint to be who must one day see God live with God saith St. Bernard in his Meditations and be eternally in unity with God what must the perfection of a soul be that shall become worthy so infinite and incomprehensible a happiness whereto all aspire that would be saved I leave it to their thoughts who know how to esteem of the works of God and make account of the greatness of Paradise and shall onely tell those languishing and easie spirits with Saint Paul Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap also for he that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting Whereupon we must reflect that Christians who are to reap the incorruption of the life everlasting if they will arrive to their
every thing This is an indispensable obligation whereto we are bound by the condition of our being for as such we are Gods being Gods we ought to refer our selves wholly to him and be onely for him The fruit is his to whom the Tree belongs if we belong wholly to God our life and actions consequently must be referred to his honour and wholly employed in the accomplishment of his Will In effect none can be ignorant but that we are in the World to do the work that God hath put into our hands according to our vocation and according to the manner that he proposeth and for the end that he hath ordained us Nothing is more evident for what have we to do in this World and what should our soul aim at but to accomplish the will of God and to do all our actions according to the designes and order established by the eternall wisdom why are we in the World if we please not God How shall we please him if we do not his will and live not in the order he hath prescribed To what end serves all the rest whereto are directed all our actions if they are not acceptable to God This is the onely point of our happiness the principall care that a Christian ought to have to regard God in all his Actions and to perform them in a pure desire to please him Let us endeavour onely to content God and God will provide for all the â—est Them that honour me I will honour and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed saith God to Eliah O how happy shall that soul be which at the houre of death shall be able to say with Iesus Christ My God and my Father I have glorified thee on the Earth I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do Happy is the soul that forgets her self to think onely on God which loseth it self in all concernments to seek onely the pleasure of God Happy are those Christians who can say in all their actions we keep his Commandements and do all things which are pleasing before him For in effect the Christian hath nothing else to do in the World We are obliged thereto by the state of Christianity St. Paul gives us a very evident reason when he sayes speaking of the sonne of God He died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which died for them rose again wherein is comprised all the duty of Christianity The Apostle saying that Christians should not live to themselves shewes the obligation they have to live to God that is according to the will of God that in all their actions they ought onely to seek to please him all other thoughts are repugnant to the state of Christianity The Sonne of God himself teaching his Apostles and in them his Church what to demand proposes to us chiefly the sanctification of the name of God the establishment of his Kingdom the accomplishment of his divine will shewing us by this lesson which we ought to repeat daily what our thoughts intentions and prayers should be that we must chiefly desire the glory pleasure and will of God After so divine a precept what have we to seek why so many exercises so many intentions such multiplicity of thoughts Let us seek to please God in all things and take a continuall vigilancy that we do nothing disacceptable to God or that is not conformable to the state and vocation wherein God hath placed us How can so many complaisances accommodations correspondencies affectations of humane prudence tend to piety when they are displeasing to God who loves nothing but purity This is an evill that destroyes the purity of all our actions an abuse that deceives the greatest part of Christians CHAP. IV. Of the complacency and self-satisfaction which drawes us from the pure regard of God and of the purity of intentions which must be in our actions IF thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light but if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness saith the Son of God of the dispositions and intentions wherewith Christians ought to do all their actions shewing by the similitude of the eye that the intention must necessarily be pure if the action permit it For as the eye being single makes the body full of light so the intention being pure makes the action pure the end and object is that which advanceth or depresseth the action giving it the quality it beares Now because the intention to be pure and simple must have as we have said no regard but that of God the onely object of its action a regard which seeks onely to please God to accomplish upon the Earth and in Heaven his divine Ordinances desiring no other estate then a bare simple subjection to his loving conduct this is that we call regard of God purity of intention To transgress this regard and purity of intention is to forsake the Sun to go into darkness to destroy the perfection and purity which makes an action truly Christian. We ought therefore to have continually in our heart the prayer of David Turn away mine eyes least they behold vanity as if he should say Lord withdraw my thoughts and intentions which are the eyes of my soul that they may be removed from all Creatures which are but vanity to be employed on thee alone who art the Truth We have reason to require this of God for this purity of intention this pure regard of God is the most beautifull piece the most behovefull to a Christian life it is the onely mark that distinguishes night from day darkness from light In this point alone the greatest part of Christians deceive themselves taking the shadow for the substance vanity for verity this is it we must examine One of the greatest retardments that the soul finds in the way to perfection in any vocation or estate is quitting the pure regard and going out of the purity of intention to seek complacency and satisfaction in something out of God By reason of that complacency and satisfaction the soul can never taste God nor arrive at perfection We need no other proofs of this then the difference between pleasing God and the Creature between the glory of God and our own satisfaction they are two paths so contrary that it is as impossible for them to subsist together as truth and falshood or bitter and sweet without corrupting The soul who seeks her own satisfaction to please her self in her self or any other thing is as far from pleasing God as the Creature is from God Wherein appeares the abuse of those who make no scruple to do their actions in regard of the Creature and have no desire but to please either themselves or some other Reason it self shewes us that those complacencies and self-satisfactions are unworthy a heart that God hath created onely for his pleasure consecrated to his
the satisfaction of their own spirit You shall find their hearts void of God full of self-love their actions inconstant their thoughts in continuall changings In fine they are nothing but disquiets complaints and murmurings Look upon their life and actions it is but a pastime unprofitableness and the vanities of the age and having considered it all it will not be hard for you to know whether those souls have the fear of God and the knowledge of vertue yet in appearance they make a great shew we know not whether is to blame those who are conducted and directed or the Directors But how ever it be the Christian who would be saved must labour herein seriously and neither fear pains nor mortifications but seek to be conducted by the wayes that God hath ordained and passing above all considerations and all sorts of difficulties prove constant and complyant with the order that God hath established over him he must every day renew his good resolutions and pray to God to let him know and be acquainted with the designes he hath upon him and give him grace in every point to follow them and with fidelity to accomplish them And seeing that his fidelity is now in question and that it is altogether necessary to all Christians it were but necessary we made some discourse of it CHAP. VII Of the fidelity of the soul and of its necessity in the wayes of grace and the actions of a Christian. TO speak of Fidelity and to see how much it is necessary to all Christians we must reflect upon the truths already proposed and remember that man was created for God who is his end that God alone can conduct him to this end and that it is the same God who onely operates in him all the good works which are necessary to make him Gods and to arrive at this end which is God From these principles of truth we enter into our subject and presently see that we have not any thing more important in this World then to go to God to co-operate with the works which God does in us to save us and to accomplish with fidelity that which he requires of us and in the spirit and disposition that he desires every one applying himself faithfully to the way that God proposes and the works of his vocation that the Priest live according to the perfection of his estate the Christian as Christian in brief that all men live so as at the houre of death they may say with Iesus Christ My Father I have glorified thee upon the Earth I have finish'd the work thou hast ordained me to do This fidelity which is absolutely necessary must be in our soul from the time we were born Though there were neither Heaven nor Hell we are obliged to live according to the will of our Creator what aversness soever the creature may have it shall be allwayes subject to the order of God either in the way of justice or mercy If we would be saved it cannot be unless we co-operate with the works that God will do in us unless we become faithfull to his graces and follow the order that God hath prescrib'd wherein he will conduct us to salvation and therefore it concerns us more then we think to take heed to the designes that God hath over us and to the vocation whereto he hath called us to the motions and inspirations he gives us to make use with fidelity of the graces he offers least drawing our selves from the order and offer of his mercy we enter into that of his Iustice and one day he say to us in the rigour of his determined Decree as he said to his people I will choose their delusions and bring their feares upon them because when I called none did answer when I spake they did not hear but they did evill in my sight and chose that in which I delighted not Isa. 66.4 When we speak of the vocation and use we are to make of the graces and benefits of God we speak of Paradise to despise them is to neglect salvation Therefore the Christian must consider what he does as well in that which concerns the vocation he must choose as in the use of the graces and favours he receives of God seeing thereon depends all his happiness or misery we must take heed we chuse not what God would not have us nor despise what he would have us to embrace This point is the most important of all in a Christian life yet is it a mystery the most secret of any in Christianity The vocation of a soul is as much hidden as her election which none can know or easily discern by her conduct The wayes of God are as much elevated above ours as Heaven above Earth and yet O wonderfull God wills that we follow his wayes and none shall be saved but according to the vocation whereto God from all time hath called him What remedy seeing on the one side necessity constrains us and on the other the incertainty and obscurity deters us O just God God of all bounty who shall enlighten us in this darkness who shall resolve us in an affaire so doubtfull who shall assure us amidst so many doubts nothing but thy light O God the onely refuge of our souls can conduct us nothing but thy spirit can teach us but thy truth can assure us and but thy infinite mercy can protect us This lets us see in what danger they put themselves who so long neglect the motions graces and favours of God and make such ill use of his benefits From these truths we learn the esteem we ought to have of our vocation and with what circumspection we must make choice thereof and if we will make our selves worthy to receive of God the light and conduct necessary in an affaire of so great consequence for our salvation it will be very profitable to enter into these following dispositions First The Christian must have a pure desire of God and a resolution to do in every thing his divine will being from the bottom of his Heart wholly resigned to his will and conduct Secondly He must have a great sence of his weakness he must be in an estate of humility before God not esteeming himself worthy or capable of any thing for the humble shall never perish and as Esay saith God looketh to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at his word Thirdly He must renounce his own interests and all his particular concernments he must not regard his own safety that he may have no object but the pure will of God yet in such manner that he who resolves to remain so faithfully and constantly in the order and designes of God and proposes to make hereafter use of Gods gifts graces and benefits and regards not perfection advancement vertue not Heaven it self must not content himself with a thought to please God for alas who is worthy thereof but cleansing and purifying his intentions
makes of them Iesus Christ wills his Apostles speaking to them of sufferings to receive them without fear and with esteem and wills that they be unto them sweet and pleasing Because saith he the hairs of your head are numbred and not one of them shall fall to the ground without the will of your Father He said that God is our Father to engrave in our hearts a respect confidence and love He sayes that our hairs are numbred and that he keeps an account of them to perswade us that Gods care of us is great and that he hath a care of us even to the least things In brief he saith that a hair shall not fall to the ground without his order to shew that all the losses privations sufferings all events loss of goods of honour of life happen not but by the order of God who is our Father What greater reason to esteem sufferings and to conduct our souls to peace and repose amidst the perplexities of the world then the assurance of Iesus Christ It is enough for a Christian if he be a Christian when Iesus Christ sayes to him Fear not for a hair shall not fall to the ground without your Father how full of love and consolation are the words of Saint Paul to the Ephesians I beseech you that you walk worthy the vocation wherewith ye are called The Reason he adds There is but one Lord one faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all These words are sufficient to establish us christianly in the spirit of suffering and to make us to bear all with sweetness peace and tranquillity of spirit even with esteem and respect We need no other object for our eyes nor other thought in our heart but there is but one Lord this Lord is God this God is our Father this Father is above all In these words we shall learn in what respect subjection and esteem we ought to be in all the contrarieties and sufferings of humane life Secondly We may look upon the state of Christianity and examine what is the essence of the true spirit of piety we shall find that sufferings is the principall its life and its continuance and its maintenance My Son sayes the wise man going to the service of God keep thy self just and in fear and prepare thy soul to temptation adding Take all that shall be imposed on thee suffer pain with patience and humility St. Paul more clearly describes this when speaking of the persecutions he had suffered he adds And all those also who will live godly in Iesus Christ shall suffer persecution which must be understood of all sorts of sufferings both inward and outward For the life of a Christian is no other then the life of Iesus Christ the spirit of Christianity This is the spirit of Iesus or in the common phrase the spirit of grace Jesus was alwayes in humiliation and sufferings he loved from all eternity seeing that from all eternity he was resolved to be man he is reinvested therein becoming man humiliation and sufferings were the centre of his life It is enough to honour pains humiliation and sufferings to say that Iesus Christ hath born them and as the Christian must be the image of Iesus Christ so must he bear with Iesus Christ all sorts of commotions pains humiliations and sufferings As we have born the earthly Image of the earthly Adam let us also bear the image of the heavenly saith the Apostle meaning that we must reinvest us with his Vertues that our life may be an express image of his life which appearing alwayes in desertions lowness and sufferings so ours must be but the same state of sufferings What honour is it to a Christian to weare the Livery of Iesus Christ what happiness to follow his steps we are his members he is our Head were it not a shame to see the body decked with flowers bathed in delights and the head crowned with Thorns we are his Brethren and must possess one heritage with him is it not reason then that we should be like him and imitate his conflicts if we would participate of his Triumphs We are co-heires with Iesus Christ saith the Apostle if we suffer with him that we may be also glorified with him Whatsoever it be the Sonne of God hath so ordered it in Christianity that he that will follow him must renounce himself and take up his Crosse. They are deceived who think to attain true piety with delights who refuse all sorts of pains and mortifications who take care for peace repose and health who onely study to frame to themselves an easie life and seek for ease in their labours and quiet in their spirits and think thereby to make a great progress in perfection No no! vertue walks onely amongst the thorns and amidst the travails of the spirit of flesh and the vices of the world She must tame her self by watchings and mortifications and the happiness of a Christian is onely in the Crosse. It is the Livery of the Children of God the mark of their election the Plummet of their fidelity and the onely way of Heaven for saith St. Paul We must enter into the Kingdom of God through many tribulations The third reason is that the grace of Christianity can operate no other effect then annihilation and suffering for to be in grace is to be subject to graces and to be in the Kingdom of grace that is to be in the Crosse. For so much as the soul hath of grace so much she must have of the Crosse. The Fathers of the Church call the life of a perfect Christian a hidden Martyrdom which is easie to conceive if we consider that the spirit of Christianity consisteth in a crucifying love a love like that of the spouse who cryes I charge you O ye Daughters of Ierusalem if you find my beloved that you tell him that I am sick of love love which pierceth the soul which transports and transforms it into its object Iesus love which combates sufferings and triumphs over death Behold this combate of love God loves us gives us his love makes us suffer to prove the faithfulness of our love the soul that suffereth because she loves willingly throwes her self into sufferings and defies all labours that in her sufferings she may express her love Iesus did so at the evening of his death when he went to sacrifice himself upon the Altar of the Crosse when he said to his Apostles To the end the World may know that I love my Father and do as he hath commanded me arise and let us go hence whence he went to the Garden of Olives to deliver himself willingly into the hands of his enemies where he shewed that love was the cause of his sufferings his sufferings the marks of his love Howsoever it be to be a Christian and not to love God cannot stand together and
to love God and not to suffer is impossible The spirit and the proper grace of the state of Christianity puts us into this necessity for the first and most inseparable effect of the grace of Christianity is to destroy in us the old man and to crucifie him there to make the new man to live who according to the Doctrine of the Apostle is no other then Iesus Christ and we know that grace must necessarily destroy our evill inclinations and Iesus Christ will purifie and consume after the manner that he pleases and as much as he will the being and life of Adam who is in us there to establish a being and a life of God Now this cannot be but by sufferings by subversions and by a long and painfull death and therefore the Master of Christians said to the Galatians Those that are of Iesus Christ have crucify'd the flesh the sins the passions and concupiscenses shewing that those who are Gods and in the Kingdom of grace are crucify'd and must necessarily be in the state of sufferings and subversions And immediately after he tells us that we are Christians and Children of God not onely to live in this estate but withall by a necessity so absolute that we may say that those who are belonging to Iesus Christ are known to be such because they have crucified and mortified their flesh and passions more then those who have not mortification and who avoid and neglect it and therefore belong long not to Iesus Christ. The conclusion is manifest in St. Paul who said If any of you have not the spirit of Iesus Christ he is none of his Now this spirit is no other then the spirit of sufferings subversions contrarieties oppositions and the Crosse and therefore he that will be Iesus Christ must resolve to suffer and though he be not oblig'd to demand it of God yet he must embrace it with esteem and receive it with love and courage when it befalls him for that it is necessary to establish him in vertue Hence we may see what deceipt is crept into Christians who making profession of some piety instead of profiting by sufferings and receiving them with esteem have no greater care then to exempt themselves from them seeking nothing but their own inward and outward content and labouring to live in a satisfaction and repose of spirit they fly all sorts of pains and remove themselves as much as they can from all trouble be it never so little and renounce and avoid all occupations and occasions that may mortifie them and if they cannot help themselves nor find any remedy then there is nothing but vexation of spirit murmuring in their hearts impatient in their words and excessive in their plaints suffering themselves to fall into a dulness and weakness unworthy a Christian To live so as to become uncapable of any solid vertues is the mark of a heart which is not Gods and of a soul which loves but it self Let us then hearken to the decree of Iesus Christ He that loves his life shall lose it and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternall CHAP. XI How the fear of suffering drawes us from the way of perfection HAving in describing the way to perfection shewed the obstacles therein it will not be necessary to speak farther of it were it not that the subject of sufferings obliges us thereto Hitherto we have seen how all that is of Adam and of the life of Adam hinders us from pleasing God for man as the Child of Adam is the child of wrath the object of divine Iustice degraded from all favours his fall is so deplorable that he is uncapable of raising himself up to God his supernaturall end if not aided by grace and if he were not engrafted in Iesus Christ as the stock into the vine and lived not his life which is a life of grace a life that the Apostle calls the life of the spirit for they that are in the flesh cannot please God and the works of the flesh are called in the Scripture dead works Now if we contemplate this world in the curse of sin we shall find that all creatures have conspired against us that the aire is full of our enemies that all things may be the instruments of our ruine wherefore our obstructions in the way of perfection are infinite but the greatest are in us and of our selves One of the greatest is a fear to suffer pains an apprehension of shame and confusion For commonly we stand in fear of crosses and travails self-love causing us to shun all that humbles us making us to fly what ever is low and hindring us from embracing any thing that is difficult This fear is a great obstacle to vertue which cannot be attain'd but by travel nor preserv'd but by viglancy nor perfected but in humility and privation it is the common resentment of all men We see also by experience that he who fears labour and suffering often fails of goodness and willingly renounces it when he finds any trouble to conserve it He easily quits the rudder when he sees the least storm of temptation or opposite action arise and rather then suffer humiliation he will quit vertue and if there be occasion renounce his portion of Paradise rather then the pleasure and content he takes in doing his own will rather then his own quiet and repose We see the greatest part of Christians dare not enter into consideration of their lives past nor reflect seriously on their sins nor think of death or future estate of the soul meerly by reason of fear to suffer sorrow for their sins That they may not be sensible of the apprehension they ought to have of God's Iudgements they will not so much as think thereon Hereupon they persevere in their malice and remain finally obstinate in their sins living in ignorance of things necessary to salvation so true it is that the least fear of pains withdraws them from vertue To see how much this fear is prejudiciall let us consider that to the acquisition and conservation of vertues two things are necessary which require both travel and pain First we must destroy ill habits next we must acquire vertuous habits We cannot ruine the evil without mortification and consequently pains and sufferings we cannot root them out without privation and resignation wherein is both travel and the cross But if we will obtain good habits and practise Christian vertues and all in grace then we must have a great care vigilancy and strength of courage to resist all oppositions that nature inclinations or occasions present unto us And although vertue be beautifull sweet and acceptable yet she finds contrarieties and then she needs resolution to use violence and to come to the point whereof Iesus Christ spake when he said If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it behind thee if thy right hand offend thee cut if off
words which shew the pain and travel a Christian is obliged to undergo to root out of his heart and tear from his soul all that is contrary to the Law of God and vertue words which condemn our delicates and all that fear labour and sufferings excusing themselves by their weakness of nature To comprehend the importance of this advice Let us lift up our eyes to the contemplation of the truth and spirit of Christianity there we shall learn of the Son of God that the Kingdom of heaven is gained by violence that the grace of Christianity is grounded upon suffering that the perfection is in love in love crucifying that all the wayes of God and the operations of his spirit consist in privation and resignation and consequently in the cross Whence it necessarily follows that they who fly sufferings and humiliation seeking onely a sweet pleasant life fearing pains and travel do by this fear make themselves unworthy of God who reigneth on the cross and is onely found in the thorns of the fiery bush They withdraw themselves from the Kingdom of grace which agrees with annihilation they shut their heart against love and which is more to be lamented go out of the order of God and from the conformity they ought to have with Iesus Christ crucified who is the object the way and the life of perfect Christians and of Iesus Christ who cannot conduct our selves but in the way of annihilating of suffering and humiliation which is the way of Iesus Christ his life and essence Here may these delicate persons see how their faint-heartedness deceives them Let us then take heed and seriously consider the sentence that Iesus Christ pronounces against them He that takes not up his cross and follows me is not worthy of me To fear sufferings to fly humiliation to refuse the communication of God is to make our selves unworthy and uncapable of all his divine operations of grace for God cannot communicate himself to the soul in the wayes of grace but he will cause therein annihilation and humility All the operations of grace can have no effects in our souls but those of humility abnegation and death Grace must operate in the souls that which death doth in the body This is so known a truth that all that speak of grace unless that it 's proper and principall effect is to give us to God to make God live in us and to place therein his love and favour It is impossible for God to operate all that in us without annihilations subversions humiliations and death unless he pluck the love of our selves and the Creatures from our hearts he cannot plant his own therein If he kill not in us the old Adam never will Iesus Christ live in us God cannot dwell in us if he do not annihilate and consume the impurities and malice of our souls Thus Christian grace to produce its effects in us requires an estate of submission and death They therefore deceive themselves who think they are in grace yet bear no mark at all of this grace for if it be in a soul it will infallibly produce the effects proper to it if it produce nothing it is a sign it is not there Herein also appeares the wrong that the fear of suffering causeth to Christians How much do souls separate themselves from God who seek no other consolation satisfaction and enjoyment but their own and labour onely to put themselves into a certain repose thinking that perfection consists in this false rest and never to suffer any crosse affliction or temptation No no Earth is the place of combate Christian life is the death of man perfect love like the Phenix seeks death and findes life in the same flames the Crosse gave grace grace now giveth the crosse the sacred spouse saith she is fair but brown scorched with the burning beauty of divine love He that cannot suffer cannot love he that cannot love is not worthy of God or the name of a Christian. It is love that triumph'd over Iesus Christ annihilated him to the condition of our mortality it is love that humbled him even to our lowness and infirmities it is love that crucified him Christianity hath no other love or grace If then the Christian will love if he will be subject to the Kingdom of grace he must defie all sufferings and couragiously embrace all that shall befall him for love overthrowes all and triumphs over the soul. If she flatter it is to hurt if it hurt it is to kill so they who seek true and solid piety must not behold God but in the Crosse nor consider grace but in humility and sufferings My well-beloved saith the spouse in the Canticles is a bundle of myrrhe she confesses she fainted and dyed in the communications of love she received from her God For when the spouse had given her his love and ordained charity in her she instantly adds stay me with flaggons comfort me with apples for I am sick of love The greatness of God the infinity of his being his divine spirit are so powerful that if he never so little communicate himself to the soul by the purity of love and grace He is able to annihilate and consume her For if he apply himself to the Creature without proportioning himself to its capacity he cannot be supported for he overwhelms and ruines the created being by this power infinite and infinitely predominating over a being so small so subjected to his power In fine it would swallow up and consume it if he did not proportion his operation to our weakness and if he gave us not a capacity and force to bear it But whatsoever he doth if he communicate himself he alwayes annihilates if he giveth grace he changeth the man if he giveth light he humbles him if he make him to bear his love he wounds him Thus the soul that will love God must love sufferings he that will love the life of grace must lose himself and annihilate himself to receive divine operations He that will beare the light of truth must humble himself seeing God doth not manifest himself but to the humble of spirit and that all the works of God bear his Crosse in humility Hence we learn that it is necessary we esteem the Crosse and sufferings and embrace them with joy and fervour of spirit but we must further observe that sufferings subversions losses and humiliations and other misfortunes of humane life are necessary to a Christian to keep him steadfast amidst the deceits and blandishments of the World the subtleties and surprizes of the Devill By these wayes which we call rigorous God severs us from the world and takes us from kindness to the creatures he makes use of these losses and subversions as of gall and bitterness to mingle with the sweets that the creatures present to us He uses humiliation and affliction to abate our pride and if he do leave us for a time it is to
and Iesus Christ his Son Thus all the fruition satisfaction pleasure and exaltation that man took in the creature by originall righteousness he takes in God making a happy change and possessing the Creator for the creature wherein is verified the word of Saint Paul where sin did abound grace did superabound By Christian grace we are drawn from the creature and from our selves to be in Iesus Christ to possess God and to take no content or satisfaction but in God The Christian by this grace takes all in God lives not but for God and lives the life of Iesus the Son of God In this sense the Apostle fill'd with this grace saith I live but it is no more I that live but Iesus Christ who liveth in me We should all say the same for Christian grace makes us to live of the life of Iesus which is so true that we see the life of a Christian hath for it's sole conservation and food the very body and blood of Iesus Christ for if according to the ordinary maximes of things naturall we say that every thing draws it's nutriment from whence it draws its being since the food of a Christian is no other then Iesus Christ it followes by a necessary consequence that his being and life must be the same Iesus Christ. A truth great and admirable which shewes us the excellencies of the state of Christianity and teaches us how holy and perfect the life of a Christian ought to be If we further consider the same grace we shall discover a new secret in Christian life for having said that grace makes us live the life of Iesus we ought to know what his life is The life of Iesus is divinely-humane and humanely-divine He is God and man and therefore lives a life divine and a life humane As God he lives the life of God in the bosom of his Father a life of Glory Power and Majesty as man he lives the life of man in lowness humiliation in impotence in sufferings So that at the same time he is living in the bosom of his Father and dying on the Arms of the Crosse. There he raigns and governs and judges all the World here he is accused condemned and crucified At the same instant he is in the exaltation and greatness of his Majesty and in the lowness and humiliation of our humanity Such also ought the Christian life to be on the one side it is great seeing grace makes us the Children of God elevates and unites us to God makes us partakers of the proprieties and qualities of God in a word deifies us and makes us as little gods On the other side the same life is obscured dejected wholly in the spirit of humiliation and privation for grace cannot reign in the soul without operating therein annihilation death and humility Moreover the life of a Christian is exposed to temptations derided by men condemned by the world and in the greatest cherishing of God it is agitated by the cross of love God enlightens the soul by grace it is granted but it is in annihilation he upholds her but it is in confounding her he unites her to him but it is in separating her and the love it self which she enjoys unites her to God she remains separated from God as long as she remains upon earth While we are in the body we are absent from the Lord so is she at once united and separated This is the conduct of God over his Church nay if we reflect upon the highest works we shall find he puts not the ornament of grace and the foundation of her estate but in lowness his grace his gifts his spirit and his communication we are but in humiliation when he established the Sacraments which are conduit pipes whereby he conveighs his graces to his Church and into our souls He hath chosen bread water and such things as are mean little or nothing esteemed among men In the birth of the Church he took the cross for the throne of his Empire a Calvary for his seat-royall he rejected an estate by poverty sufferings and martyrdom and at this day he does the same in the regency of his Church It is true that this littleness is not now known this martyrdom is within all this holiness is hidden it appears no more to the eyes of the world as it did of old by the triumphs of Saints who became victorious and glorious in the effusion of their blood and yet notwithwanding she cannot be exempted from undergoing her humiliations her heresies and persecutions According to the proceedings of God in the conduct of his Church is likewise his carriage in the sanctification and government of our souls he leads them by the cross he retires from them he hides himself he leaves them in privations he humbles them annihilates them smites them overthrows them The perfect Christian must resolve to fight with and bear his sufferings in such manner as we have said but sufferings that are hidden to men are known to God which do glorifie him only in the sight of Angels Wherin is discovered how they are deceived who in their devotions and exercises seek resentment enjoyments content and satisfaction and would know and feel the excellency and elevations of grace I call it a deceit for Christian grace consists chiefly in privations in lowness in rigours and that is it they stand most in fear of and avoid Now as the life of Iesus begun in poverty and ended on the cross so a perfect Christian who would live a life of grace must resolve to walk amongst thornes to bear privations and sustain desertions for the cross and thornes are things proper to Christian grace and to the love of Iesus To abridge therefore the life of a Christian and all that hath been proposed let us say that the Christian to live and walk worthily according to the vocation whereto he is called must go out of himself to live in Iesus Christ his centre must be the bosome of God his life a hidden martyrdom and all his actions and sufferings must be pure and referred to the glory of God his intentions must look onely upon God his desires must be onely to please God his care onely to follow God his contentment wholly in God In brief his thoughts his designes his works must bear the Image of Iesus Christ the foundation of his being must be onely of God all to God and all for God that he may say with the Master of Christians To me to live is Christ and to die is gain THE FIFTH PART Treating of true Piety and the more particular Duties of a Christian towards Jesus Christ our Lord. CHAP. I. What Devotion is and wherein true Piety consisteth SAINT Paul proposes to his young Timothy divers admonitions to be used in the particular conduct of himself and government of his Church The first which he most recommends is piety saying Exercise thy self unto godliness as if he should say
the life of Iesus after what manner he pleaseth This is a principall point of Christian piety The very mysteries of our faith acquaint us with this truth and discover unto us the designes whereby the Son of God would advance us to a participation of his Mysteries and the severall estates of his life The Son of God becoming man by incarnation takes possession of the nature of man of our bodies and of our souls by which he acquires a right to his nature to advance and appropriate it to himself after what manner he pleases as by this work of love he took humane nature upon him assuming body and soul which he appropriated to himself and elevated to all the greatness of the divinity communicating to it for ever the person being life and nature of God In like manner in the works of grace whereby his divine mysteries are honoured Iesus chooseth such souls as he may dwell in by love or after what manner he pleaseth otherwise he appropriates them to himself by his grace he advances them to adherence and union of spirit with him and by a particular indulgence establisheth them in a communication of his greatness To this end he applies and employes his power to which a Christian ought to be most vigilant and attentive that he may alwayes continue in the subjection he owes to Iesus Christ to accept receive and bear the effects of his power This Principle of truth and piety is grounded upon the common doctrine that all that Iesus Christ did he did for us and all that he is he is for us He saith the Apostle became poor for our sakes although he were rich that by his poverty we might be made rich meaning that Iesus being God became man and took upon him our meanness infirmities sufferings death the severall conditions of our life to withdraw us from our meanness enrich us with his divine graces and advance us to a participation of the severall estates of his life blessedness sanctification and salvation Hence we may take occasion to consider the greatness of Iesus he is our fulness in his annihilation in his poverty he sufficeth all for God gathereth together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth It is the greatness of his mysteries that they are capable of communication to us and can admit the sanctification of our souls as it is our glory and happiness to be able to participate of the grace estate and mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ. This is the first designe God hath upon us when the Son of God living an immortal and eternal life in the bosome of his Father took a new and mortall life in the womb of the Virgin his Mother He desired nothing so much as to give us his immortall life and to abase himself to our estate to elevate us to a participation of his greatness and the rather because as he honoured his Father by the several estates of his new life his hidden life his suffering poverty death cross obedience subjection in all the estates and mysteries of his life so he will have us to honour him in participating of the estate spirit and grace of the same mysteries For this reason in his Church and of all qualities and vocations he chooses souls and calls them to an establishment in the participation of his spirit and a communication of his new life a life of grace such as is wholly singular and proportioned to the eminence dignity and sanctity of a Christian calling All this is an effect of his divine mercies the fruit of his sufferings it is our glory to be called and elevated to this happiness as it is our duty to keep our selves in a disposition and capacity to receive and bear them according to the designes and intentions of the Son of God All those then who are desirous to live according to Christian piety must make it their main business to continue faithfull and humble in this subjection that they may be ready to go when they are called and to receive when they shall be rewarded We come now to the Dispositions whereby this estate may be attâ—ined CHAP. IX Certain dispositions necessary for the devout soul that would participate of the grace and estates of the life of Jesus Christ. THis estate of interiour piety which puts the soul into a subjection to the power of Iesus Christ and a capacity to receive and bear the graces and estates of the life of Iesus is altogether suitable and necessary for those who seek perfection as being proportioned and conformable to the designes and order that God hath established in his creatures In the creation of the visible World adorned and embellished with so many severall creatures God hath created Angels and man to contemplate so perfect a work to admire the excellencies and to honour the Authour of such miraculous productions He hath done the like in the creation of the new World that is the establishment of his Church wherein Iesus Christ chooseth souls and formeth spirits who are employed in considering the works of love operated by him upon the Earth for the salvation of mankind and honouring the Authour of so many Graces As God hath created a great number of Angels different in perfection and order and as some conceive in species also to whom he hath given severall gifts and graces as well as severall ranks in Heaven that they may honour by these diversities of estates perfections the divine qualities and severall perfections of God for the Seraphims as Thomas Aquinas affirmeth adore by estate and by grace and contemplate by the light of glory the uncreated love of God the Cherubims his wisdom the Thrones his Stability and so of the rest The eternall Word having accomplished the ineffable and adorable work of his Incarnation having finished that of our Redemption and created in this naturall World a new World that is the Church puts souls into it who by the conduct of grace are employed in consideration of the works which Iesus Christ operated on Earth And amongst the rest he hath chosen many who by their severall estates and perfections continually honour the severall estates of his life and adore his actions and perfections humanely-divine and divinely-humane This must needs be an undeniable truth for if the Angels and the Church triumphant are continually and eternally employed in admiring and adoring the life estates and Mysteries of Iesus Christ shall not her Sister in the Church Militant have the same rights employments and duties It is not to be doubted and certainly seeing that love hath obliged the Sonne of God to these lownesses and makes him ours for ever for he shall be man eternally and eternally our Iesus our head and our All it is but reason that we be alwayes his and render him perpetuall honour and homage This is he that operates in our souls this is the estate whereto many are called It
is onely expected that Christians dispose themselves to participate of this happinesse and being called thereto endeavour to correspond faithfully therewith God doth the same in the regency of his Church the Sonne of God making use of his power hath established therein severall estates orders and societies separated from the common and from one another which he consecrates and appropriates to the severall estates and Mysteries of his life Some honour his solitude and hidden life others his penance others his poverty others his obedience all adorn and beautifie the body of his Church and in the diversity of their functions and estates honour adore and imitate the severall operations and Mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ who distributes his spirit and the grace of his Mysteries to all according to what manner he pleases He doth the same in the particular Government of souls he causes and calls them to elevate and establish them in such estate as pleaseth him sometimes by sufferings sometimes by privations one while by love another by simplicity and infancy In a word he estates them as he pleases to be honoured by them one and the same spirit according to St. Paul working all things dividing to every one severally as it pleaseth him The same Apostle represents this truth under the similitude of a humane body all are members of the same body animated enlivened with the same spirit and yet they have all their several offices and functions particular and different The case is the same saith this holy Apostle in the Government of the Church which is the body of Iesus Christ whereof all christians are members though all make up but one body and are the animated onely by the spirit of Iesus yet are they called and employed to particular estates and in all there is a difference of gifts and operations but it is but one spirit and one God who does all in all they are different effects of one and the same principall cause It is the same Iesus who chooseth the souls to communicate to them the graces and divers estates of his life How happy is that christian who is called to this happiness Herein consisteth the perfection of the soul as in things naturall we say that the Creature is most perfect when it most participates of the being life and perfections of God so in the state of graces that soul is most perfect which participates most of the graces of the divers estates and qualities of the Sonne of God This grace and favour is not for every one and farre above the ordinary The Sonne of God doth not call all souls to a participation of his life nor alwayes communicates to them the spirit and graces of his Mysteries Yet the christian who would live in a solid piety and adherence to Iesus Christ and would feel the effects of his divine communications must desire this favour and earnestly demand it He must often reverence and adore the life thoughts designes Mysteries and estates of the life of Iesus He must offer himself with all his heart to the power spirit and grace enclosed in those divine Mysteries In a word he must carefully remove from his soul all hinderances and inclinations opposite to the designes and operations of the Sonne of God But above all he must continue constant in subjecting his soul to the power and will of the Sonne of God He that will practise all this must make these uses following The first is that the soul always resigne her self to the power of the Son of God than he may make in her and by her all that he will for his glory This resignation to be perfect must be grounded upon a freedom of spirit a freedom which is the true spirit of the children of God and consisteth in an estate of indifferency and independency as to all things as well in the order of nature as of grace and being subject to God onely by this freedom all things in the world are indifferent the soul remaining in a pure capacity of submitting to whatsoever the Son of God will operate in her and by her giving her self up wholly to his divine power This liberty of spirit is the principall estate and first ground of Christianity for all Christians belong to the Son of God and are left to his power One died for all saith Saint Paul that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him who died for them Teaching us that as the Son of God gave his life for us and by his excessive charity delivered himself to the ignominious death of the cross to do the will of his Father so he hath right and power to choose and consecrate us by his grace to offer us an Holocaust of sweetness and honour to the glory of his Father that as he hath been the victim of our sins we may be the victims of his love Hence it is evident that the Son of God hath power and right to put our souls into what estate it shall please him for his glory be it an estate of life or death of privation or abundance of confusion or honour and may choose out souls and advance them to the participation of the mysteries of his life to render to him particular homage and service We must then resigne our selves wholly in all things to Iesus Christ. To establish us in this disposition the liberty of spirit whereof we speak is absolutely necessary For when it hath separated us from all things nay even from our selves it puts us into an amplitude and capacity to be all that God will have us to be and to bear the effects of his grace and power And therefore the Christian who seeks to establish himself in true piety and live with fidelity must endeavour to conform himself in this liberty of spirit for it is difficult nay impossible to adhere to Iesus Christ to depend on him and faithfully to receive the operation of his grace if we are not in this liberty of spirit that is an independency as to all things This is the spirit and disposition that God requires in a Christian according to the Apostle That the spirit we have received be not a spirit of bondage but of liberty and adoption This first disposition leads us farther and advances us in the wayes of piety and puts us into a second disposition by which we accept with humility and submission all the estates and effects that the spirit of the grace of Iesus Christ shall operate in us and bear with patience and obedience whatsoever rigour and difficulty we meet with Having so received them we are also bound by this disposition to act according to the quality and extent of grace communicated to us and to live conformably to the estate whereinto the Son of God puts us We must remain firm in that subjection and liberty of spirit we speak of In this use consisteth the peace and liberty of the soul For