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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A85367 Good thoughts for every day of the month. Translated out of French By Mrs. D.S. 1656 (1656) Wing G1082; Thomason E1716_2; ESTC R209652 20,927 179

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GOOD THOUGHTS FOR EVERY DAY OF THE MONTH Translated out of French By M rs D. S. LONDON Printed for Thomas Dring at the George in Fleet-street neer Cliffords Inn 1656. DIRECTION for the READER THis short Collection includes the chief Heads of Christian life distributed into Weeks In the first the Motives that we have to go to God in the second and third the Vertues that lead us to him in the fourth the Exercise of those Vertues As for Method in using them I know that the two best and most certain Directours in prayer are the Holy Ghost and Practise That we cannot learn better how to pray then by praying That prayer is a good Method for it self Yet not to engage you without some direction let me advise you 1. To choose a convenient precise time the Morning before you enter into the trouble of businesse or at Night when your minde is at ease 2. In some retired place your spirit being setled and recollected First lift up your self by an act of faith to God who is present and attentive to the voice of your Heart My God I believe firmly that thou art here within my soul and that my soul is in thee c. Secondly adore him submisly humble your self to the utmost Lord I am but dust and ashes c. Thirdly ask pardon of him for any offence known or unknown that may render you unworthy to appear in his sight Lastly invoke the assistance and light of the Holy Spirit 3. Read the first thought of the day but stowly Though you should do nothing more then rest upon conceiving the truths therein yet will they work in you as it were without your help There is nothing in God that is not holy and sanctifying and his words are Spirit and Life Thoughts have the same operation upō our Mind as a Seal upon Wax The Soul receives the impression even of simple notions if she stop there and concur with them But you shall do better if as soon as you have read the first thought you discourse a little to your self upon it and examine Is this true Is it reasonable Is it necessary Why How Did Jesus and the Saints practise it Doth God inspire me with it If I do it not What then c. This done proceed to the next thought and if your time be spent only reade the rest leasurely but above all pause upon the Conclusion and resolve on the performance of something conformable to your subject begging of God 〈◊〉 severance and Effic●●● 4. The little sentence at the end taken out of the Scripture or some Father is like a drop of Essence to be worn all that day it contains all the vertue of the good thoughts it concludes it is easie to cal to minde and to retain if you reflect often upon it it wil quicken and fortifie your light and instil it self into all occasions Thus we may with application and constancy raise our good thoughts to such a point of vigour that they may extirpate our ill or at least make them weak and ineffectual and exalt and magnifie them till they bring us to a pious immobility and some extraordinarie purity This S. August means Hom. 16. de 50. He cannot have ill deeds who hath good thoughts Good Thoughts FOR EVERY DAY of the MONETH The First Week The Frst Day of the Moneth Of the End of our Creation 1. WE are created for God God himself could create us for no other but himself and we should betray our selves if wee did not confesse this truth our heart tels it us and we cannot contradict it 2. It is fit that every one should have his own then let us be for God since we are his if not we bely our selves for if we are not his Children under the love of his Bounty we shall be his Slaves under the rigour of his Justice 3. As then Bread which is made to nourish the Sun to give light the fire to warm if they should refuse the office for which they were made would bee as if they were not or as Monsters in Nature because every thing must tend to that end for which it was made and cannot decline it without going to its own destruction So the Heart of Man which is only and essentially made for God if it stray from him or refuse to go to him belies its essence and becomes monstrous a scorn to the World and to all reason 4. Well then do I carry my self like a Creature that is for none but God Is my Heart and all my affections for him Ah how few things do I that I can say are truly and only doue for God! Ah how much time is lost how much reproach gotten in one day What do you do upon the Earth if you do not that for which you are there You must here renew your designe of seeking God onely and your resolution to rob him of nothing that appertaineth to him S. Aug. lib. 6. Confess cap. 6. Oh intricate wayes of the World Wo be to that audacious Soul which presumes to hope that by leaving Thee it may find any thing else which is better The II. Day Of Sin 1. O God what is it it to lose Thee To lose God an infinite good is it nothing Men that lose their goods by some accident as by Fire or by Law seeing themselves reduced to beggery are so troubled and afflicted therewith that they lose their sense and grow desperate Ah what then will a soul do that hath lost her God! 2. O Sin too familiar but unknown to Men in play and divertisement to make our selves the object of the infinite wrath of God! God so good an Ocean of goodness becometh to a sinner an infinite ill and cannot but hate him infinitely to hate ● little is to wish a little ill to a Man to hate to death is to wish death and there it ends but to hate to infinity O God what do we fear if wee do not fear the dreadful hate of God! 3. See the horror of Sin in the sufferings of JESUS What a spectacle is there Yet the state of a Soul in sin is much more horrible then that of a God dying on a Crosse since that JESUS died to destroy sin that he might no longer behold that which afflicts him more then Death But alas can I believe that God will spare mee who delivered his Son over to such horrid pains After this you must make an act of Contrition as well as you can upon al the sins of yhour life past We ought not to grieve for any thing else for nothing else can Grief remedy Jerem. 2.19 Know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God and that my fear is not in Thee saith the Lord of Hosts The III. Day Of Death 1. HOw much must that soul apprehend Death which all its life time hath been an enemy to God! What regret for having for