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the Kingdome of charity and to bring thither the fire of his love and who died on the Crosse to draw us unto God and withdrawn from death the world and sin that he will vouchsafe to give us the grace to feele and he are the effects of his Crosse I beseech him to consume us in the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
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
to expiate the abuse which we make of our bodies to condemne the pleasures and volupties of the world Offer your Soule your body and life to Jesus and desire strength of him to despise the delights of this life and grace to suffer whatsoever shall happen to you PRAYER BEnigne Iesus what comparison can there be between the grandeurs of your Soveraigne Majesty and the abasement of the Crosse You are life in your divine Essence and you are life and glory to every rationall creature Why doe you then abase your selfe O ineffable greatnesse even to the torment of an ignominious death You undergoe it for me poor and miserable sinner and your love reduces you to a death on the Crosse to give life to me who am dead by sin This state is too unworthy of your greatnesse remaine rather on the Throne of your glory and leave me in the miseries and misfortunes which I have acquired by my demerits And if your goodnesse excite and invite you to shew me favour let it be at least without concernement of your greatnesse or abasement of your incomprehensible Majesty But I clearly discerne O my Iesus that it is your infinite goodnesse that invites you to love us with an infinite love and hath procured the communication of your selfe to our soules in an unconceivable manner for you exhaust your owne person to give your selfe unto men and you even consume your selfe in the flames of Charity to shew me your love and oblige me to love you You suffer and die to the end that having purchased me at the price of your bloud and life I may be no longer mine and live no more to my selfe but remain wholly yours and live only for you Alas Lord when will this happinesse befall me it is what I desire for I am yours my soulde my body and actions are yours I offer and submit them entirely and eternally to your holy will that you may do in and by me what you please for I am wholly yours as you are all mine Point II. JEsus thus covered over with wounds and suffering in all the members of his body is on the Altar of the Crosse as a victime for all sinners offering himself to his Father to heale them of the wounds made by their sinnes and he gives even to the last drop of his bloud for expiation of their offences Compassionate his Dolous render him thankes for the love he beares you and protest never more to offend him PRAYER ALl that you suffer on the Crosse O amiable Iesus and the paines which have consummated your Passion are but the ransome of my offences and the satisfaction of all my crimes for they are my sinnes which have deprived you of life it is my pride which hath humbled you my self and the pleasures of my life have scourged you my perverse inclinations and vaine desires have crowned you with thornes in fine you die upon the ignominious Tree of the Crosse to deliver me from the capiivity of the Divell and sinne and to satisfie the divine Justice justly irritated against me so that I consider you on the Altar of the Crosse as an holy victime which you offer unto your Father to appease him and your death is a sacrifice which you make to him of your selfe to merit life for mee and to obtaine pardon for my offences After so great a benifit can I be so unhappy as seeke to revive sinne in my soul and render my selfe still a slave to it Can I desire to enter into a new commerce with vice and obey my own concupiscences which have crucified you No no succour of my Soule I detest them with my whole heart and hate them with all my force for the love of you I will no longer offend you by the assistance of your holy grace which I beg of you by the merits of your passion Since you die onely to extirpate sinne in my soule and to banish vice out of my conscience Effect Lord effect what you desire and give me a holy inabilitie of offending you Point III. IEsus sheds his bloud in suffering and expires by the effusion thereof But the nailes and Executioners being unable to extinguish the ardor of his love which even in death it selfe cannot die he conserves what remaines of it in his heart and body to poure out upon the Crosse even to the last drop that he may evidence to us the profusion which he intends to make of his spirit of his graces and love Sacrifice unto him your heart and offer your selfe to him to beare the effects of the Crosse as he shall please to imprint them in your Soule PRAYER I Adore you O my Iesus crucified as the beginning of all happinesse and as the Spring of all graces and benedictions which either have been or shall ever be communicated to men I adore all the thoughts and desires which you have had upon the Crosse of giving your grace love to your elect finally my Saviour I adore the profusion you make of your bloud even to the last drop and the excesse of love which you expresse in all the states of your life and death Grant me the grace to beare the effects thereof and faithfully to co-operate with the merits of your Passion for what will it availe me O God of love that you are dead upon the Crosse and bountifull in communicating your Spirit and grace if I render my selfe unworthy of it and oppose my selfe against it by my iniquitie Neverthelesse it is what I feare for I am too miserable and shall surely remaine obdurate in my sinne if you prevent me not with your grace if you guard me not with your succour and if you continue not your favour to me Wherefore O â—â—exhaustible goodnesse be pleased not to thinke it enough to have given your bloud and life but bestow on me over and above I bâ—seech you your spiâ—it your grace and love And I make a gift to you of my heart my spirit and life and remit into your hands the libertie wherein you have created me to the end I may become from henceforth a slave to your love and that my soule may live no longer then to receive the effects of your death and the life of your Crosse IESUS lying dead betweene the armes of his holy Mother Point I. IT is an unheard of thing to see God upon the Crosse and life in death yet you behold Jesus stretched out between the armes of his holy Mother He is dead but by this meanes he becomes the life of our Soules This manner of death is infinitely distant from the greatnesse of God but love hath wrought this wonder to convey life to your soule and death to your sins Give your selfe to Jesus and Mary to be are in you these two effects of life and death PRAYER IF I desire to live in God and in order to what he requires of a Christian I must needs die to sinne alter my depraved customes and
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
not fall and governe me by your Spirit that I wander not in the nations of my perverse inclinations Defend me good Iesus and deliver me from my selfe and permit me not to adhere to my affections nor to follow my owne appetites I renounce them all since they separate me from you and I conjure your goodness to annihilate them to the end that adhering wholly unto you I may be for nothing but your selfe for such is my desire you know it O love of my soule To ask the love of God OBject of all Love perfect Beauty ineffable Goodnesse who can choose but love you I purpose it but am unable I will love to death and will die but in loving you Transpierce my heart with your love and my body with your feare effect O powerfull God! effect powerfully that your Spirit may consume in me all that is of my selfe that I may bee wholly yours and love none but you and that living in you I may die to all other things A protestation of Love Shall I be alwaies overlightned in my selfe distracted in my thoughts inconstant in my motions How long will you permit me Lord to follow my owne inclinations and to be violently affected with the Creature Recall my spirit withdraw it from all things to retaine it for your selfe Let not your just conduct O most amiable goodnesse abandon me for leaving me to my self blind that I am I should lose my selfe in my Cupidities and separate my selfe from you to live no longer but for my selfe Let death rather force me away yea fill O God of love fill rather my life with bitternesse my heart with feare and my soule with continuall displeasure then permit that to please the Creature or to satisfie my selfe I may displease your divine Majesty An Act of Love WHy shall I not love you O most amiable goodnesse You oblige me thereunto by your love you attract me by your benefits and you command it by your goodnesse I will then love you because I ought and I desire that my heart may love you with all his power because nothing is amiable but your selfe But I cannot love if you inspire me not with love Abide then in me O desirable love live in me to the end that following the lawes of your love I may live and consummate my selfe in you Aspirations of Love VVhether are you gone sweet Spouse of my soule Alas I carry a heart replenished with bitternesse when I have no sense of you I keep my self aloofe from you loft in my thoughts I perceive my selfe wandring in various objects for a heighth of miserie I walke in the night of a heart darkened with selfe-love My life is all humane and as a child of Adam my life is in the old man I know not whether I have a being or no only I know that I am miserable but to live in this sort is a cruell death it is not to live at all to live without you it is too long a Martirdome Take pitty on my soule returne and possesse me entirely Restore me your spirit give me your life and change my whole heart Why can I not like a Phoenix consume my selfe in the ardors of your eternall love and alter my course of life being to be no longer but in you to live no longer but for you You can effect this O God who can do all things Sighes of Love MY eyes are bathed in teares and my voice is broken with sighes my life is but a death and all things are but a Martirdome to me when I thinke where my God is Alas this thought makes me powr out all my soule and I languish both day and night when I know that I must remain in this abode of miserie I cry out from the bottome of my heart How long Lord how long And must I yet live for a long time in the land of the dead and absent from your face remain among the perills of this miserable life Must I being oppressed with my body feele my selfe removed from the sweet attractives of your Caresses I am content with it since it is your Pleasure Great God Master of my soule your will is my delight your love my direction But effect O God who can do all things effect by your mercy that as your Son and my Iesus lives only in love and this love makes him die so I may live no longer then in loving you and that love may make me suffer To sue for the contempt of all things TOo long O my soule doest thou seeke vanity and affect lies This world hath nothing in it stable permanent all is perishable therein Goodnesse truth peace and repose are found only in God thou losest thy selfe in selfe-loving and seeking thy selfe thou art estranged from God Come then to my succour O Saviour of my soule and reach me your hand dissipate all these allurements which detaine me captive Open to me your heart O my so amiable Iesus to shelter me in the midst of so many surprizes see Lord see how from all sides snares are laid for me to make roe fall in love with this world Doe not permit it O love of my soule my heart is for you alone preserve it then as yours Another MY eyes discerne not O Adorable verity the errour of vanity and my heart feels not the horrour of all vices But come O Sun of Iustice come and shine upon my soule consume with your beames all that is displeasing to you give me your spirit which opens my eyes to discerne verity which inspires me with love to adhere unto it which redresseth my will and teacheth it to detest the world and gives me the grace to seek you alone and to live only for the love of you To demand light and direction for your soul SUnne of Iustice illuminate the darknesse of my spirit Comforter of soules draw me out of the ignorance wherein I live I walke in the shadow of death amidst the perils of this life and severing my selfe from you who are the way and life of my soule I run like a vagabond into the curious research of the objects of my senses Do you not see it O my God who see all things Come then to my succour light of my soule I aske nothing but your selfe my heart fighes after you and my eyes seeke you every where Dart therefore O Iesus a glance of your face infuse a ray of your beauty into the bottome of my Soule to call me back to you and make me know who you are and what I am to the end I may be wholly yours and that being no longer mine I may love you alone To invoke Grace GReat God! your Treasures are unexhaustible and your hands full of gifts You are rich only in goodnesse and in shewing mercy you evidence what you are Mercy then Lord mercy for I am a sinner one glance of your eye one word of your mouth can deliver me from evils for while you look on me I shall love you while you speake to me I shall follow and run after you in the odour of the sweet perfumes of your heavenly grace To call for Contrition FRom the depth of my misery I elevate my heart unto you O God of goodnesse my soule sighes after you God of mercy And now that I am sensible of my misfortune that the weight of my sins oppresse me within I cry aloud unto you lend me your eares and fix on me your benigne eyes to withdraw me from the evill whereunto I find my selfe fastned Give me your arme Father of mercy to sustaine the yoke of my offences light to know them teares to bewaile them and the zeale of your justice to satisfy for them I can no longer endure the foulenesse of my life nor to live any longer distant from you O happinesse of my soule I pant after you you know it but I cannot escape out of the place which captivates me nor breake the bands which fasten me if the power of your Spirit and the Spirit of your love doe not dissolve and break them in pieces loosen them then O Lord and render me the liberty which you have purchased for your children at the price of your life Affection to accomplish our good purposes I Feel my selfe seized with a flame of love which makes me protest never more to forsake you O Jesus the love of my soule I am weary to see my selfe in the midst of so many inconstancies I desire to be entirely yours you know it very well Lord for it is of you as of a spring of goodnesse that my soule is full of desires and my will of good affections it is a gift of your hand preserve it by your grace and give me your arme and benediction to uphold me in my good purposes and that I may punctually accomplish what I have promised you stimulated and incited by the motions of your Spirit alwayes holy to the end you may finish and perfect in me what you have begun by your infinite mercy for without you I can doe nothing and by you am enabled to doe all things FINIS A PRAYER which the Church useth to invoke the love of God DEVS qui diligentibus te facis cuncta prodesse da cordibus nostris inviolabilem tuae charitatis affectum ut desideria de tua inspiratione concept nullâ possint tentatione mutari Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum c. Amen
all of it as a King in his Kingdome who commands all as the Father of a family in his house who ruleth and directeth every thing And even as wind disperses smoake and fire liquifies and melts waxe so Charity which gives us God and is even God himselfe reigning in us dissipates our imperfections consumes our inordinate affections and delivering us from sin subjecteth us entirely to the power and direction of Iesus Christ who reignes in us Whence it followes that whoever is willing to become a true Christian of what condition soever he may be in this world ought to desire that God may reigne in him he must dispose himselfe thereunto and render his soule and conscience worthy to be the Kingdome and habitation of God And to arrive to this blessed condition he ought to be in the state of love and charity whence we are to inferre That all the true exercises of a Christian must tend unto the obtaining of love and all that he is to doe all that he is to learne and the very method which he is to observe in order to a good life consists onely in love and charity Wherefore it were to be wished that we would learne no other lesson in this world nor imbrace other exercise then that of Love and Charity And in effect God demands nothing of us but love for he that loveth fulfills the whole Law of God And Jesus Christ being ready to die recommends nothing more to his Disciples then love vertue is not acceptable to God and our whole life hath no merit without Charity Finally God gives not his Paradise but unto love Is it not then very true that the exercise and practise of love ought to be the sole entertainment and whole occupation of a soule that intends her Salvation In as much as it is most certaine that at the houre of death God resolving to judge us will respect nothing but love for he will receive us if we expire in the state of love and reejct us in case he finds us destitute thereof I pray tell me now you that read what I write when you shall come to the houre of death and be in that moment wherein you are to appeare before the Tribunall of God to receive the definitive sentence of your Eternity if you find your selfe void of the love of God what sorrow will you not feele for having passed away your life in toyes for having set your affection on trifles and not loved God who is only amiable and the true happinesse of our soules And at this last houre which you cannot avoid wherein you shall be constrained to abandon both this life and all that is in this world what anguish will you not suffer for having rendred your selfe the slave of vanity and unto all inordinate motions of concupiscence for having violated and despised all holy and divine Lawes to satisfie your owne desires Finally what displeasure will you feele for having shut your heart against the love of God to lodge therein the love of so many creatures Surely at the time of your death you will as I may say even die for sorrow and this griefe will be that worme which shall eternally gnaw your soule for having so much studied to please the creature and for having been so strongly fastned thereunto as to prostrate your selfe to vanity and pleasures and for having despised the love of God who is your happinesse and the true delight of your soule But suppose that you shall be saved and that you are in the role of those Elect whom God intends to place in his Kingdome of glory where there is no other God but Love no law but that of Love and where the life and entertainment of the Saints is but a perfect and eternall Love Though you be I say of this number and if your name be written in the booke of life yet God will not save you without Love and Charity for you must necessarily die in Charity if you will be saved Let us suppose then that you have Love at this last houre it will be surely a true love of God If then you can ever Love God with a true love how much paine will you feele for not having loved him sooner How much more bitterly will you detest the world and all the creatures which you have loved and which have diverted you from loving a God who loveth you so much as to give you his Paradise It is then yea it is then when you will understand the love which God beares you and that you will love God truly then will it be that the more light you shall receive and the purer your soule shall be the more will you detest the world and deplore your owne ingratitude and undoubtedly in this point will consist the sharpest of your paines and the most insupportable dolours which you shall suffer in Purgatory I say all this to recall your soule and perswade you if you can to prevent the miseries of this houre and moment which you cannot escape and that from this instant preparing your selfe for death you may begin to seek and desire no other thing but love In all your devotions learne to love God and take courage to despise manfully all impediments unto true love Let all your Entertainments and Devotions be in order to love and in all your exercises of mercy strive onely to root out of your heart and remove from your life all that distanceth you from the love of God For your assistance herein I thought fit to present unto you some few documents which I conceive very profitable for all such as have a desire to live well I stile them Devout Entertainments because indeed the soule ought to entertain and busie her selfe onely in love and charity And I call them Devout in as much as true devotion consists only in this point of loving God It is not my intention to discredit other Exercises which are recommended to soules because they are good and profitable if they direct unto Love and Charity But I may well say with S. Paul that all is nothing without Charity Wherefore I could wish that a true Christian had no other object or end in all his actions then love that he would studie nothing but love and strive to correct all his defects opposite to the love of God for all being well considered whoever hath Charity hath all things And indeed we see so many persons frequent the divine Sacraments we see so many who exercise themselves in works of piety and neverthelesse little profit and change is observed in the life of Christians If reasons may be given for it there is no other in my opinion then their defectivenesse in loving God This is the reason why in all this little Treatise I speak of nothing but Love and Charity It is true also that I treat of the Presence of God and shew the practice of it but I have done it in consideration of love because I conceive
to receive of Judas the kisse of Treason how you present your hands and abandon your adorable body to the rage of Devills and to the malice of men and sinners to dispose of you and your life in whatsoever cruelty could suggest unto them Alas who is able O my sweet Iesus to imitate you I fervently desire it but acknowledge my owne impotency for I feele contradiction in my selfe and tremble at this thought However leave me not O Saviour of my soule in case I am not able to imitate you in all things at least let me doe it in what I may and I can doe much if you give me your grace Open then my eyes that I may discerne what I am change my heart that it may affect what you love and animate my spirit humbly to indure all contempts and confusions All that I am now able to doe in the presence of your Soveraigne Majesty is to accuse my malice to condemne my pride and to offer unto you my will my heart and soule to order them as you please Succour my infirmity fortifie my weaknesse breake my obstinacy and by the fire of your love be pleased to consume all my iniquity IESUS is fastned and scourged at the Pillar Point I. SHead you not tears of love and compassion beholding Jesus the Beauty of Heaven and the Glory of Paradise exposed to the cruelty of barbarous men fastned all naked to a Pillar to make you a bath of his bloud and to cleanse the staines of your soule Give him thanks and render him teares of love contrition for the bloud which he hath given you in this mystery PRAYER MY Iesus Grant that my heart may break with griefe and my soule dissolve in your love for you oblige me to it by your benefits And to say truly who can choose but love you seeing that by the excesse of the love which you beare us you have expos'd your selfe to the rage of Devills and to the malice of sinners And why shall I not break my heart asunder with sorrow and contrition since by my offences I am the occasion of the pains which you suffer How farre more just were it O Saviour of the world that you should remaine in your Glory in the Throne of your greatnesse and that I who have rendred my selfe the slave of sinne and of my passions should be fastned to this Pillar and torn with the scourges of your justice But since your love is content to make paiment for mee grant that I may love you as I ought and no longer offend you This is my intention I desire it with my whole heart and I beg it of you with an entire affection Point II. CHrist Jesus upon the Pillar put on the condition of a slave and criminall to beare the effects of the rage of Devills and men He remaines there in the midst of them like a Lamb victimated and abandoned of his Father deserted by his Apostles and afflicted by all creatures Compassionate this state of Jesus and beg of him that from henceforth you may remaine abandoned and resigned unto all that he shall ordaine PRAYER A Las my Jesus I have made the debt and you have paid it it is I it is I who am guilty and you are punished it is I unhappy that I am who have irritated Heaven and rendred my selfe unworthy of all your favours I both know and confesse that I deserve nothing but hell and for my sins to be sacrificed unto the divine Justice which I have so often contemned but your goodnesse which seekes nothing but my Salvation by a prodigy of love makes an admirable exchange For you enter O Saviour of my Soul into my condition and loading your selfe with my offences you are now victimated like an innocent Lambe and left to the Justice of God abandoned on all sides and plunged into to all sorts of sufferances What lesse can I doe O my Iesus in recognition of this love then adore your goodnesse and abandon my selfe entirely to you to be what you please I give my selfe then unto this mystery and offer my selfe unto you to beare the effects thereof in such a manner as you desire Point III. THe Body of Jesus is covered all over with wounds from the very head to the feet and exhausted of bloud and strength Consider that the wounds drops of bloud you see on it are as so many tongues which enunciate to you his love and teach you how you ought to love him in humiliations and sufferances Offer unto him your life your body and bloud never to imploy them but for his glory PRAYER I Am yours O good Iesus my soule my life my body and bloud are no longer mine but yours in respect that for my sake you make a profusion of your owne bloud you abandon your body unto wounds and sufferances your soule and life you give to me upon the Crosse After all these graces and favours shall I not be yours No no Lord all these drops of bloud which you shed and all the wounds of your body are so many tongues which condemne my ingratitude and invite me to your love I am willing to love and from this very instant and for ever I desire to be wholly yours and resolve to love nothing but you alone Bruise bend breake and oppresse my soule if you please combat my life with a thousand afflictions make me suffer as long as you please yet will I never utter any other words then that I am yours and that I love you alone IESUS is crowned with Thornes Point I. THe love which Jesus beares us exerciseth on him the power and rigours thereof love placeth him amongst thornes and even death it selfe love exposeth him unto mockeries spittings buffets and the contempt of his enemies Consider all this and beg of Jesus that the selfe-same love may exercise on you the power thereof Offer your selfe unto all the effects which he shall vouchsafe to produce in your soule bee it in the thornes of Penance or in the death of your vices and earthly affections PRAYER O How happy should I be if your love would once take Empire over my heart Let not the fault be mine for I desire it I seeke it and offer my selfe wholly to you to beare the effects thereof Grant then Lord grant speedily that the power of your love may deeply wound my soule In loving you nothing will be difficult for me in this world for if love hath cloathed you O good Iesus with our miseries and loaden you with our sinnes if love hath fastned you on the Crosse what will it not worke on me if it raigne there and exercise his power Then would it be that I should truly die unto my selfe to live in you that I should despise all things to love you alone and that stimulated by this love I should satisfie for my past crimes never more to commit the like But when will that blessed houre arrive that I shall love
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