a band which ought to fasten and unite us unto God 9 It is not my designe to entertaine you with prescribing you instructions for the reception of these two Sacraments since you have so many Bookes which treat of it I will onely say that if ever you stand in need of all the Entertainments which I have newly given you it ought to be in the reception of these two Sacraments which are two fountaines of love and mercy For love and recollection by the presence of God as I have explicated serve us for a disposition to prepare us to receive worthily the Sacrament of Penance and the Eucharist I beseech our Lord Jesus Christ who came into this world to establish therein the Kingdome of charity and to bring thither the fire of his love and who died on the Crosse to draw us unto God and withdrawn from death the world and sin that he will vouchsafe to give us the grace to feele and he are the effects of his Crosse I beseech him to consume us in the flames of his love and to fasten us so indissolubly unto himself as wee may never more sever our selves from him but that he would place us rather in a happy inability of offending him and in a more blessed servitude never more to estrange and separate our selves from him nor to act any thing but for his fake Amen MEDITATIONS Upon the Principall Mysteries of the Passion of JESUS CHRIST PREFACE IT is a great happinesse for a man to be able to entertain himselfe with God and to speak to him as often as he desireth He may do it by vocall and mentall Prayer wherein he treats with his God It is a favour which Jesus Christ hath acquired for him for it is by him saith the Apostle that we have accesse unto God I call it a favour in as much as man having severed himselfe from God by sinne and being expelled out of his presence and banished from his amiable company the Sonne of God came into the world to expiate sinne and to establish both in heaven and earth a new alliance between God and Man One of the meanes which Jesus Christ himselfe hath left us to preserve our selves in this happy alliance and the way which he hath pointed out to bring us neer unto God is Prayer for by Prayer we enter into society with God we entertain our selves with him we elevate and unite our selves unto him and treat with him of the ineffable Grandeurs of his Divinity of che effects of his incomprehensible goodnesse of the necessities and miseries of our life finally by a holy commerce we speak to God and God vouchsafes to speak to us There are an infinity of objects upon which the soule may entertain her selfe with God and forme her meditations for as God is an inexhaustible sea of greatnesse so is he the object of an infinite entertainment unto a Christian soule But the most reasonable most profitable and easiest subject wherein our Spirit may imploy it selfe is the life and death the depressions and humiliations the torments and sufferances of Jesus Christ For as much as in the misteries of the Passion and in all the moments of the life and death of Iesus the soule discerns therein the excessive love which God beareth us In the sufferings and ignominies of the Crosse she conceives the weight of sinne and the punishments which our crimes doe merit And considering what Iesus Christ hath done what he hath said and his holy and adorable Vertues in all the misteries of his death she learns thereby the Vertues which she ought to practice and the way which she is to follow to attaine unto the glory which Iesus Christ himself hath acquired for her at the price of life and precious bloud It is for this reason devout Reader that having undertaken to present you with Entertainments conformable to the common life of all Christians I have added the Meditations upon the principall misteries of the death of the Sonne of God to the end you may make use of them for your advancement in the love and feare of God and that by often considering them you may learne to imitate his Vertues and place your glory and affiance in the death of Christ Iesus Would to God you could say with S. Paul I will no longer glory but in the Crosse of my Iesus I will place my content and love therein I will follow him in the Crosse that I may possesse him in glory This is that which I desire of you with my whole heart and I wish that the death of the Sonne of God may be the Spirit and life of your soule The Prayer of IESUS in the Garden Point I. COnsider the love which God the Father beareth you deprivâ—ng his Sonne of joy and glory to invest him with sorrow and load him with paines and reproaches exposing him unto the rigors of tin divine Iustice for the expiation of your offences Desire ardently that this selfe same spirit of love may divest you of all vanity selfe-love and your own private interest A Prayer to the eternall Father I Adore your goodnesse O eternall Father and the love which invited you to give me your Sonne to set him in the opprobriousnesse of the Crosse and to victimate him in the sufferances of an ignominious death that he might be my Saviour and my Jesus The love which you beare me hath beene the cause that you have not spared your own Sonne but have cloathed him with our infirmities and loaden him with the confusion and paines which I have merited to undergoe for my offences After so great a benefit is it not just for mee to love you How happy should I be O God of mercy if you would fill my heart with this love how happy should I be if you would consume mee in the flames of this divine fire It is all that I desire and a grace which I aske of you above all the graces which you can give me Grant then O God of goodnesse that I unloofe my selfe from all other love to love you alone grant that the power of your love may strip mee of all vanity and annihilate my selfe-love to the end loving nothing but you I may live onely for you Point II. BEhold how the Sonne of God lies prostrated on the ground bearing the weight and confusion of the sins of the whole world and in this sort he is made the object of the anger of God You have your part therein by reason of your sins beg then of him the engraving in your soule a desire and ability to satisfie for your offences and the granting you a true contrition for your sinnes PRAYER ALas what shall I doe for if my Iesus who is the Power of Heaven if my Iesus who is the vertue of God falls and remaines under the weight of my offences what will become of me and how shall I beare them when dying I shall be presented before the Tribunall of the
for my sinnes Point II. THe great love of the holy Virgin hath made her suffer extremely her life is no other but a Martyrdome her thoughts are fixed only upon the Crosse and her eyes have no other object then death and the death of her Sonne Her love is now but languishing and her languishments cause her incessantly to sigh after her God and her Sonne O my soule how happy should you be if you could live no longer but to love and suffer PRAYER Holy Virgin how shall I attaine so light enough to conceive your greatnesse and grace to imitate the severall dispositions of your soule I know and faith teacheth me that you are the Mother of God that your soule is full of grace and I confesse that you are the worthiest object of love and the most capable of favours from the blessed Trinity yet I see your soule all immersed in the bitternesse of the Crosse Your life is no longer but a Martyrdome your love is languishing and the object of your sighs are fixed onely on the death of your Sonne O how content should I be O Virgin life of my soule if I could lead such a life as yours How happy should I be if in imitation of you I had no other repose then in afflictions no other delight but in the Crosse nor other life but in the death of your Sonne I deserve not this favour I have not grace enough to live in so holy a manner neverthelesse I desire to live no longer but to love and no longer to love but to suffer I offer my selfe unto you for all this dispose now wholly of me as you shall please Point III. IF Love makes our Soule live in what she most affects surely the holy Virgin lives no longer but in Jesus suffering and dying since he loves nothing but Jesus And as Jesus is crucified in his body so the Virgin is in her soule The Sonne dies on the Crosse The Mother swounds at his feet The side of the Sonne is pierced with a Lance the heart of the Mother is transpierced with the sword of sorrow thus both of them live and die together What will you doe O my Soule at the sight of this sad spectacle since all this is done and accomplished for you Beseech the Sonne and the Mother to inspire you with true love and to render you worthy of bearing faithfully the grace and effects of the Crosse and Passion PRAYER WEre I unwilling O benigne Mother of my soul yet the affection which you beare me obligeth me to love you I am content nay I desire it with my whole heart but I am unable to effect it without a favour from heaven But as it is a great mercy that you vouchsafe to love and co-operate to my salvation so is it a great grace that I may be able to love you and live in your service I beg then this favour of you O Virgin Mother of my soule and I beseech you to change my heart that from henceforward I may bee yours and entirely dedicated to your service Put me in a state of perpetuall servitude towards you establish me in the true love of Jesus and procure that I may both live and die persevering in that love and service which I owe you I remit my life O holy Virgin into your hands I remit into your hands the houre of my death because I will be wholly yours and depend on you in such sort as my God and my Iesus desires it of me Be pleased then O Mother of mercy to receive me into your protection and to looke on mee as the object of your goodnesse and the subject of your commiseration Accept of my good will fortifie my weaknesse and give mee the grace to put in practice the good purposes which God hath suggested to me by your intercession and no longer permit that I act any thing which may annihilate in my soule the effects of grace but obtaine for me a capacity of receiving in my heart such effects of the Crosse as my Iesus shall infuse into it and fidelity to co-operate therewith in such sort as my God and my Iesus requires of me ASPIRATIONS OF The Soule unto God in forme of PRAYER The oblation of ones selfe unto God Lord Iesus of my selfe I can doe nothing for I am a miserable creature but with you nothing is impossible to me Abide then in me O happinesse of my soule live and raigne over me to effect in me what is acceptable to you You have all power and I offer it you a fresh over my life and actions even from the bottome of my soule I remit into your hands the same liberty will and life which you have given me Be pleased to accept and keepe them as yours for I am wholly yours and will depend on you Another Oblation MY Iesus by the nature of your being by the eminency of your greatnesse and by the state of your miseries you have been pleased to be both my Father my Lord and my Judge I implore all these adorable qualities and I invoke the power which you have over me by these holy properties which are in you and I beseech you by the same mercy and goodnesse which hath made you take on you those states that you would vouchsafe to inspire me with that fidelity which I owe you that I may be by my life your Sonne as you are my Father by grace that I may be your slave by a true subjection since you are my Lord. And as I acknowledge and adore you as my Saviour so let me be your captive being wholly yours and acting nothing but for you And since you are my Judge and that I confesse my selfe criminall be pleased to distill into my soule the zeale of your Justice to the end by your Grace and with vour Justice I may execute Justice on my selfe and satisfie your just indignation occasioned by the multitude of offences which I have presumed to commit against your divine goodnesse Thus I desire it thus doe I give my selfe up unto you O Iesus Saviour and Iudge of my Soule to become the victime of your will and to bear the effects of your grace Spirit and mysteries in such sort as you shall please In this manner I renounce my selfe to enter into all the dispositions and states which the eternall Father will have me beare in you and for your sake O Iesus A Resignation to the will of God O Iesus Father and beginning of all light illuminate my soule with your splendor that I may discerne what is disagreeable to you and give mee the grace to avoid it Grant that I may both know your will and accomplish it in every point for I desire to be wholly yours and to live no longer but for you To put ones self into the protection of Almighty God SAviour of my soule Author of my salvation see the dangers wherein I am remaining in this life sustaine mee with your hand that I may
is the mother of all sinnes is the principall occasion thereof For if you came into the world to ruine and annihilate the Kingdome of death and the empire of sinne much more did you come to combate the pomp of the world and to destroy the pride of men It was to this end you were borne and lived so poore and abject It was for this end that you died in the midst of so many confusions loaden with so many reproaches it was to condemne pride that your whole life your sufferings and death were onely in humiliations Since them O Lord you neither liv'd nor dy'd but to condemne pride which is the spring of all miseries I condemne it with you and detest it for your sake Be pleased to root out of my heart and to ingrave in my soule the love of humility And as in this mystery you abandon your selfe to the false judgments of men who esteem you worthy all the tortures which you indure so vouchsafe to give me the grace that for the combating my pride I may affect contempt despise the false judgments of men And for the completement of my blessing I beg of you that I may partake of the grace and spirit of your Passion and that you will be pleased to form in me your dispositions your actions and sufferings for I shall assuredly raigne with you if I become like unto you IESUS is nailed unto the Crosse Point I. PIlate abandoneth Jesus to the will and malice of sinners and Jesus himselfe became obedient in every thing even to the death of the Crosse He is delivered up to the Jewes and Gentiles to be nailed and fastned to this ignominious piece of wood in such sort as they shall ordaine Adore Jesus who satisfieth by his obedience for the disobedience of sinners and learne to love obedience and to preferre the will of God before all things of this world even before your owne life PRAYER O My Saviour and my God! I remaine not in this world but to fulfill your holy will all my happinesse depends on this point and the perfection of my soule consists in this vertue hitherto both Heaven Earth the Elements and all Creatures in obeying you teach me what I ought to doe But the death of my Iesus ô Eternall Father and his obedience in all the mysteries of his Passion evidenceth to me that I ought to preferre your holy will before my own contentments my private interest and even life it selfe that I must feare neither contempts nor sufferances nor even labours in all occasions which concerne that obedience which I owe your Soveraigne Majesty for if your Sonne hath abandoned himselfe to an ignominious death if he hath given his adorable feet and hands to be cruelly nailed unto a Crosse and if he subjected himselfe to the will of sinners and executioners what can I doe lesse from henceforward then learne of my Iesus the obedience which I owe to all that you require of me In honour then of the obedience of your Sonne and in homage to this vertue which he hath practised rendering himself obedient even to the death of the Crosse I give my selfe unto you O Father of mercy and acknowledge my selfe your Creature and Vassall and I purpose faithfully to obey you and to live under the lawes of your Empire Do not permit Lord if you please that I ever prove rebellious to you or that to fulfill my owne will I forsake yours but by an effect of the Mysterie which I contemplate grant that I preferre your holy will before all earthly things and even my owne life for such is my desire Point II. BEhold the submission wherein Jesus the King of glory vouchsafeth to place himselfe for our sinnes when as with a profound silence he submits to the Iudges to the Executioners and his Enemies And he even abandoneth himselfe to the power of Divels obeying so humbly and readily when they go about to uncloath him to naile and fasten him to the Crosse Subject your selfe for his sake as much as you may chiefly when there shall be occasion of being humbled or suffering any thing for the honour of God PRAYER GIve me the grace O God of love and goodnesse to know you and understand my selfe for if you impart unto me this light and affect me with a sense of this verity it will be easie for me to annihilate my selfe in the presence of your Soveraigne Majesty it will be no longer uneasie for me to condemne and confound my selfe considering the little love I beare you and it will be facile for me to suffer contempts humiliations and the Crosses of this present life For O benigne Iesus I see you all naked in the midst of most cruell Executioners stretched out upon this ignominious wood of the Crosse and if you who are the onely Son of my God have been pleased to endure for my sake the scourges the nailes and the Crosse why shall I refuse for the love of you the pains and contempts of this life No no Lord I detest my pride I accuse my remissenesse and renounce the delicacies and effeminacies of this world to the end I may imitate you and partake of the spirit grace and merits of your death and passion Point III. COnsider Jesus suffering in all things which may bring him pain humiliation and confusion to expiate the abuse we make of every thing which we imploy in offending the Divine Majesty and to condemne the inordinate love wherein we preferre the creature before the Creator Implore his grace to make good use of all things and take an aversion to the wantonnesse of the flesh PRAYER O Amiable Iesus you have created me to love you and have loved me to oblige me to your love nay all that you have done and suffered was but to draw me to you and to ingage me in your service I render you thanks with my whole heart and I beseech you to give me the grace that I may love you above all things and love nothing but your selfe in all things Be pleased to annihilate in me whatsoever is opposite to your love consume in my heart selfe-love and all affections to creatures to the end I may unite my selfe to you and live wholly for you I know very well that my crimes and offences have rendred me unworthy of this grace But O God of love and goodnesse you have suffered death on the Crosse to obtaine for us this grace and to attract us to your love Fix then if you please O benigne Iesus fix I say your love in my heart and your feare in my soule and grant that I may love you with all my power and with all my forces in order to your command Iesus upon the Crosse Point I. IEsus suffers in all the parts of his body who hath nothing whole from the feet to the head for he is covered all over with wounds bruised with blowes and his bloud quite exhausted He indures all these severall paines
withdraw my heart from selfe-love and all affection to creatures But how shall I doe it O blessed Virgin if I receive not powerfull assistance for I am able to act nothing if I want efficacious grace which operates in and with me what God desires of me Now from whence may I have it but from and by you O Mother of grace and mercy since God hath put into your hands the price of my Salvation and since you hold in your armes the fountaine of all graces I repaire then to you O benigne Virgin and I give my selfe to you to the end by the power which you have in quality of my Saviours mother you may produce in my soule the effects of life and death my meaning is that you operate in such sort by your favour that I may really die to my vices and sinnes that I may detest and hate them and lead such a life as God expects of me and to which I obliged my selfe when by Baptisme I was incorporated and made a member of Iesus Christ your Sonne Point II. THe Son of God vouchsafed to unite pains sorrows afflictions and crosses to himselfe and his holy Mother with designe to render them from thenceforth pleasing sweet and worthy to be esteemed and desired on earth Begin to esteem them because they are deified in Jesus and honoured in his holy Mother And if you are unable to aske them of God at least resolve to be are them with humility and patience when they shall happen to you PRAYER YOu have ever been O holy Virgin the wel-beloved of the eternall Father You are amongst all the pure creatures the worthiest object of his love You are his spouse and the true Mother of Iesus as he is his Father and he gives you his Son with him hath put into your hands the treasures of Heaven and earth and all the riches of Divinitie For this reason you are the worthiest of all pure creatures and with my Iesus you are the happinesse of the whole world Neverthelesse O Mother of God I see you in the midst of mount Calvary and at the foot of the Crosse holding your Son dead between your armes You take off the Crowne of thornes you wipe his wounds you wash his body with teares and kisse a thousand times the bruises of his flesh You suffer likewise with him the ignominies and dolors of the Crosse so that humiliations crosses afflictions are both in you and in Jesus In him and you they are become divine sanctified and rendred acceptable And for this cause they are worthie of being esteemed and desired by Christians What must I then doe O holy Virgin if I will love you what other thing can I doe but affect Crosses and humiliations with you and humble my selfe like you I desine and purpose it thus in my soule procure me only the grace that in all occasions I may beare every thing with fidelity and patience in such sort as God requires of me and you desire I should Point III. THe holy Virgin holding her Son between her armes offers him to God and the divine Iustice for satisfaction of our offences And as the Father hath given his Son to the world and the Son delivered himselfe up to the Crosse to save us So the holy Virgin both with heart and will sacrificeth her owne Son that she may in this sort minister unto our Salvation Give her thanks for this extraordinary Charity and beseech her to render you faithfull to all the graces which the death of the Son of God hath acquired PRAYER YOu have been chosen ô Mother of grace and mercy to be the repairer of the world and to co-operate in a most peculiar manner to the salvation of all mankind You did when you gave your Sonne Christ Jesus to be delivered up to the death of the Crosse and you do it when holding him dead between your armes you offer him to the divine Justice as a Victime and Sacrifice of propitiation which satisfies God for the sinnes of the world And in this respect you are our Repairer for Jesus who is the Saviour of men is yours he is your Sonne and you are his Mother And in this quality you have right to his life his preservation and all his condition Neverthelesse O Mother of our Soules you consent to his death you incourage him to torments you conduct him to the Crosse and like another Abraham you sacrifice in will and affection your only Sonne and you sacrifice him for my sinnes so great is your charity and love towards me But what can I doe in recognition of so sublime a benefit Wherein am I able to acknowledge O benigne Virgin so ardent a Charity At least since you give your Sonne for me procure that I may be your slave and since you resigne him to efface the sinnes of the world and that hee may merit for us such graces as are necessary for our salvation be pleased to mediate that I may be faithfull to all the graces which he hath purchased for me by his death and that I may live no longer but for his honour and yours as you give him to the Crosse and deliver him up to death for me Our LADIE of Compassion Point I. Since the Eternall Father can have no compatency in the dolours of his Son he substituted the holy Virgin imprinting in her heart and Spirit the vertue of the Crosse and the Spirit of his sufferings and piercing her heart with the sword of sorrow he made her suffer with her Sonne that in some manner she might co-operate to our Salvation Consider what Jesus and the holy Virgin suffer for you and from henceforth take delight in the thought of their sufferings and in the love of the Crosse PRAYER O Virgin and mother of my Iesus I render you thanks for having contributed to our salvation not only by giving your Sonne but also in taking your share in his Passions for if he indure you suffer with him The scourges the thornes the nailes and the lance have pierced his body but love and sorrow have transpierced your heart and gauled your soule Wherefore holy Virgin the true refuge of sinners I adore Iesus for my Saviour but I reverence you as his Mother and acknowledge you for the Repairer of the Universe since you cooperate doubly in the good of our soules For you give us your Sonne and suffer with him for us Be pleased also to mediate O Virgin spring of life and grace that I may be from henceforward the object of your commiserations And since you have loved me so much as to give me your Sonne and to give him even for the Crosse since your love and charity fastens you to my interests and makes you suffer for mee procure that I may suffer all for you but chiefly engrave in my heart such a hatred of sinne as I may rather indure a thousand deaths then so much as once offend my Jesus your Sonne who died
DEVOUT ENTERTAINMENTS OF A Christian Soule Composed in French by the R.F. I.H. Quarre P. of the Oratory of JESUS and D. D. Translated into English by J. M. of W. Prisoner in the Tower of London Printed at Paris Anno Domini MDCXLVIII The Translators Addresse to the pious and Christian Reader THe most charitable and excellent title of this worke is properly me thinks addressed unto you good Reader since you are the likeliest to relish and make true use of the admirable conceptions which are offered you in this little golden Treatise It came to my hands as a Missive of Charity sent to entertaine me in my sad imprisonment and upon a serious perusall the finding it of so divine a spirit and of so universall a concernment was invitement enough to me to propose the naturallizing these Meditations in our Countrey by contributing so much as I am able to them namely an English Tongue in which though they lose something of their native grace yet I have reason to believe that the charity of the Authour will be content to be somewhat diminish'd himselfe to become more beneficiall to his neighbours nor need I doubt but that the force of his heavenly spirit will break through even my grosse language and be not onely heard but reverenced amidst the noise of Drums and Trumpets so frequent in these unhappy times wherein we have more cause then ever to remember the great Trumpet of the Angell wherefore the voice of this Author which seemes Angelicall will come very seasonable both to awake drowsie and to advance pious soules in the ardors of their love towards God for here is a loud Alarum for all sleepy and slothfull Souldiers calling unto them to take up the Shield of Faith and the Sword of the Spirit to defend themselves by the supply of so powerfull succours as these holy Meditations against the furious assaults of our common enemy whose principall attempt is against what these Entertainments seeke the most to fortifie namely the love of God The Authour shewes you that this love of God is the most Essentiall point of Christianity Be watchfull therefore I beseech you and keep this fortresse safe from the surprize of our professed enemy and then nothing can be feared for God expects more at your hands and in loving him you fulfill his whole Law and sweeten to your selves the rigour of all humane Lawes After he hath set you in the way of applying continually those duties which appertaine to the preservation of you in this happy state he presents you with some Considerations upon the whole Passion of our blessed Saviour as a powerfull motive to invite you to this pure love which he demands of you and to render homage to this excessive goodnesse for so great and inestimable a benefit which it hath purchased for you at so dear a rate as even the death of the onely Son of God And truly when we looke upon the sufferings which Jesus Christ hath indured for us ought we not to reproach our selves for bearing impatiently a few crosses and contradictions in this short pilgrimage for if so sacred a person sustained such violent pains for us can we conceive our selves exempt from them No no let us rather be ashamed at our cowardice and effeminate affections in desiring to find no opposition in our way but to tread still upon roses thornes seeming too harsh for our dainty feet which if they be so tender cannot looke like feet appertaining to a head stuck full of thornes and alas we cannot expect a share in the glory of our head Christ Jesus if we as his members beare not willingly a part in his combats When we are called into the Field of the Crosse let us then consider how happie we are that may make to our selves a Crowne of these thornes whereof there are store at hand in these hard times let us march joyfully that we may triumphantly passe through Mount Calvary fastned as S. Paul saith to the Crosse with Christ and this is the nearest way to the heavenly Jerusalem where we shall be refreshed after all our labours with the sight of that soveraigne object of our love the increated Beauty and Verity whose first sight is no lesse then eternall beatitude Desiring to pay some respect to the Authour I shall rather doe him injury if I keep you too long by any discourse of mine from entering into his devout Entertainments whose prayers you have and mine shall presume to attend on his to implore an efficacious operation of his holy labours and my charitable designe J. W. The Introduction Concerning the necessity of the Love of God ALL the favours which Heaven showres downe upon us are only to withdraw us out of the captivity of sin and the world and to place us in the liberty of the grace of Christianity to the end God may reigne in our hearts It is for this reason wee are made Christians and receive the faith of Baptisme Jesus Christ died on the Crosse for this end and when he descended from the bosome of his Father to be made Man his designe was only to establish the Kingdome of God amongst the children of men And if we may be allowed to enter into consideration of the eternal thoughts of the eternall Father we may easily discern that in the whole Incarnation and Passion of his Son and in the whole disposition of our salvation he hath no other aime then to seat the Kingdome of God in our soules and to procure that our heart which is created only for God may be really the Throne and residence of the Divinity In effect all the Sacraments which Jesus Christ himselfe hath instituted and left unto his Church as so many springs and fountains of graces and benedictions are onely to dispose and place in us the Kingdome of Jesus Christ to produce the reigning of God in us and to abolish the dominion of the world the Divell and Sin When Jesus Christ taught his Apostles how they were to pray he gave them the Pater Noster and wills us to desire above all things that his Kingdome come that is according to S. Gregory to ask of God that God may reigne in us And Iesus Christ himselfe said to his Apostles that the chiefest desire of a Christian ought to be that God may reigne in his heart Seeke first of all saith he the Kingdome of God It is certain then that God ought to reigne in us not sin nor the world And evident it is that the grace of Christianity causeth the Kingdome of God to preside in our hearts Now God cannot reigne in us but by love and charity for S. Iohn saith God is charity and he that abides in charity abides in God and God in him His meaning is that by love God makes his residence in the soule he placeth there his Throne he reignes and commands there and quickeneth the whole soule He is there as the Sun to the Heavens which illuminates