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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A10876	The Christian mans guide Wherein are contayned two treatises. The one shewing vs the perfection of our ordinary workes. The other the purity of intention we ought to haue in all our actions. Both composed in Spanish by the R.F. Alfonsus Rodriguez of the Society of Iesus. Translated into English.; Ejercicio de perfección y virtudes cristianas. Part 1. Treatise 2-3. English	Rodríguez, Alfonso, 1526-1616.; Matthew, Tobie, Sir, 1577-1655.	1630 (1630)	STC 21142; ESTC S112045	75,603	296

afterwardes it turnes to vanity and we fall to seeke to please and comply with others and be esteemed our selues and when we find any of this wanting to our expectations presently we begin to do our functions after a languishing manner and more out of necessity then any will or application to them Wherein the hurt and mischiefe of vaine Glory doth consist CHAP. II. THE hurt which proceeds from this vice is principally this that it makes a man vaine gloriously seeke to exalt himselfe with that honour glory which only appertaines to God 1. Tim. 17 Deo soli sit honor gloria that which he reserveth only to himselfe Isa 42.8 c. 48.11 and wil haue giuen to no created thing Gloriā meam alteri non dabo wherefore S. Augustine in his Solitoquiums directs his speech in this manner vnto God Almighty VVhosoeuer Augu c. 5 Solioq Lord from thy good ●●ckes glory 〈◊〉 himselfe and not to thee is 〈◊〉 theefe and a robbery and like vnto the Diuell who went aboue to steale thy glory from thee In all Gods workes two thinges are to be considered first their profit and vtility next the glory and honour which proceedeth from them and ought to redound vnto their Authour and Originall the fruit and vtility of his actions God doth freely bestow in this life vpon men but the glory he doth wholy reserue vnto himselfe Prou. 16. ● D●ut 16.19 God hath made all for himselfe and the Lord hath created all people to his prayse name and glory Whence it is that all his creatures do preach and teach vnto vs his wisedome Psal 18.2 goodnesse and his prouidence hence also it is that heauen and earth are sayd to be full of his glory Isa 6.3 Whosoeuer then in those good workes which he doth shall seeke the prayse and the esteems of men doth wholy peruert Gods ordination in them and is app●rently iniurious vnto his diuine Maiesty by seeking that men who ought wholy to be occupyed in glorifying God should neglect and turne themselues from God to haue regard to his esteeme and prayse and also desiring that their harts which God hath created to the end they should be vessells of his honour and glory should be filled with their honour and esteemation What is this is this but to steale the hearts of men from God Almighty and turne him out as we may say of his owne house and habitation Can there be greater malice wickednes then to seeke to robbe God of his glory and the hearts of men Or to ●●y with their mouthes that God Almighty is only to be our obiect whilest in their hearts they desire to deriue the eyes of men from God vnto themselues He who is truly humble desires not to dwell in the hart of any creature but in God alone neither that any should be mindful of him but that they should conuert all their thoughts to God neither lastly to be so much as spoken of by men but that God alone should be in the mouthes of euery one that they should haue him only in their hearts and there conserue him to eternity We may the better perceaue the soulnes and enormity of this vice by considering what iniury that woman should doe vnto her husband who should trimme vp adorne her selfe more to please anothers eyes then his for euen so doth he who doth his good workes which are our soules peculiar ornaments more to please men thē God Almighty who is the spouse and Bridgrome of our soules Thinke likewise how vnworthily it would shew in any Nobleman to boast some sleight seruice he had done his Prince who for him had formerly exposed himselfe to some great danger and ignominy without regard eyther of life or fame especially if he should seeke to commend himselfe by those his small seruices which yet he had not done without the assistance of his Prince vnto the dishonouring of his Prince who without any helpe of his had done for him a thousād times as much it were a disloyalty to be detested by euery gratefull mind and yet these is none of vs but may well apply ●ll this vnto our selues and haue iust cause to be ashamed aswell for that we proudly esteeme our selues to haue done any thing as chiefly for that we boast our selues glory vnto others when we do any thing whereas we might haue iust cause to be so confounded for hauing done so little if we would but compare that which we are obliged for Gods sake to do with that which God only for our sakes hath done The euill of this vice doth yet more clearely appeare in that the Diuines holy men do reckon it among the seauen deadly Sines Clim de vana● gloria which are called the heades and originalls of al other sines and some there are who reckon eight and say that the first is Pride the second vaine Glory but the common opinion of the holy Fathers which is receaued and followed by the holy Church D. Thom. 2.2 quest 132. art 4 is that there are seauen capitall Sinnes vnder which S. Thomas saith Vaine glory is the first but that Pride is the fountaine originall and root of all the seauen Eccl. 10.15 following this sentence of Ecclesiastes the beginning of all sinne is Pride Of the hurt and domage which vaine Glory bringes along with it CHAP. III. OVR Sauiour in the Ghospell doth apparently declare what detriment this sin of vaine Glory doth bring along with it where he sayes booke that you do not your actions before 〈◊〉 for to be seene of them Matth. 6. otherwise you shall haue no reward of your Father which is in heauen Doe not imitate the Hipocriticall Pharisies who did all their works with designe to be seene esteemed and praysed for them by men for so shall you loose all the fruit of them Amen I say vnto you they haue receaued their reward Math. 6.5 Your desire was to be esteemed of men and out of this desire you haue done all your actions and therefore you haue your reward already Quia ventum seminabunt turbinem metent And miserable as you are haue nothing least you may pretend in the other life Holy Iob sayth The hope of an Hipocrite shall vanish Iob. 8.13 to wit of such a one Greg lib. Moral cap ●● who doth all his actions to be esteemed and praysed which S. Gregory excellently declares where he saies that all the prayse and the esteeme of men for which they sought laboured with the breath of life vanishes away and then Non ei place bit record●● sua his folly and madnes will be displeasing to him O how much sayth this Saint shall you find your selues abused when hauing the eyes of your vnderstanding opened you shall see that with those workes by which you might haue purchased Heauen you haue gained no more then the vaine prayse of men and the empty

doth nor consist in the addition of other extraordinary actiōs vnto those we do not in performance of more high specious things but in the doing with perfectiō those ordinary things which we haue to do and those offices in the discharge of which obedience doth imploy vs although they be of themselues the vilest and most abiect in the world seing they are those which God doth require of vs and to the performance of which we must confere all our regard and care if we would be pleasing to his Diuine Maiesty and attayne vnto perfection which being so let vs seriously consider with how little expence cost we may be perfect if we wil our selues since it requires no more then the bare performāce of those ordinary things in the which euery one is exercised and employed This ought to be of great consolation to vs and a great incouragemēt to the attaining of perfectiō For if vnto the end you might be perfect there were exacted of you any vnwonted extraordinary things as rapts extasies or profound high meditation you might haue some pretention and excuse by saying you neither could nor durst ventur so high a flight or if there were proposed vnto you the making disciplines euery day to blood to fast with bread and water to go barefoot weare and rough hayre cloath continually you might answere that you doubted whether you had forces enough for to sustaine so much but this is neither required of you neither doth perfection consist in this but ōly in the doing those ordinary things you doe prouided that you do them well with only doing these you may be perfect the reckoning is already payd you need be at no more charges there are required no other workes to be added to them This being so who will not take hart and courage to be perfect when the perfection is in our owne powers so easy and facile so cōuersant and so familiar with vs God Almighty sayd to his people to incourage them to serue him and fullfill his law Deut. 30.11 The commandement which I prescribe vnto you to day is not aboue your reach nor farre off from you neither placed in heauen in so much as you might say who is there of vs who can clime vp to heauen for to fetch it downe vnto vs that we may heare it put it in execution neither is it put beyond the Seas whereby you might excuse your selues and say who is there of vs that can swime ouer the sea and bring it hither vnto vs that we may heare it and do that which is commanded but that which I say is hard-by you and very conuersant in your mouth and your hart that you may fullfill it and the like may we say of that perfection whereof we speake S. Anthony made vse of this motiue to incite and stirre vp his disciples to perfection Graeci studia transmarina sectantur regnum autem coelorum intra vos est The Grecians sayd he doe crosse the Seas in quest of learning knowledge they do penetrate strange lands endure much wearynes expose thēselues to sundry dangers but we to attaine to perfection which is the truest wisedome haue neither need to expose our selues to dangers nor vndertake long iourneys neither so much as stirre out of our owne Cells for it seeing we may find it in our Oratories nay what is more euen within our selues Regnum Dei intra vos est perfection consists in those daily and ordinary workes which you are to do It is ordinarily demanded in spirituall conferences when any great feast drawes nigh as Lent Aduent Easter Whitsontid or at renouation of our vowes what is the best deuotion to prepare our selues vnto this renouation or that fasting to receaue the Holy Ghost or the infant Iesus newly borne and there vses to be assigned many both good and laudable but the most principall one and that vpon which we ought chiefly to insist is this whereof we speake to wit to perfect our selues in doing of our ordinary and daily actions free your selues of those faults and imperfections which you commit in doing your ordinary workes and indeauour euery day to do them better and with lesse imperfection and this will be an excellent preparation if not the best for to obtaine your wishes and desires haue an eye principally vnto this here fixe al your thoughts vnto this direct al your consideration and make all your spirituall exercises meanes to arriue vnto this end so important and with all so easy and familiar VVherein the goodnes and perfection of our workes consists and some meanes to performe them well CHAP. III. LET vs now see wherin consists the well doing of our Actions that we may haue recours vnto those means which may serue vs to the wel performance of them This for to be briefe consists in two things the first and chiefest is to do them purly for God Almighty S. Ambrose demaunds the reason why God in the Creation of the world when he created the corporal things said that they were good when he had created the plants and trees it presently added Et vidit Deus Genes 1. quod esset bonum and God saue that it was good he had no sooner created the beasts of the earth the birds of the ayre and fishes of the sea but straight ways it is added and God saw that it was good he created the heauens that stars the Sunne and Moone and instantly is added and God saw that it was good he praysed comended all things as soon as he had created them only comming to creat mā he seems to passe him ouer in silence without praysing him or adioyning thus vnto the making of him vidit Deus quod esset bonum as he had done to al the other created things besids what is the mystery of this saith he Wherin the difference because the beauty excellency of all other creaturs created things consists only in the exteriour and the outward shew they haue no other perfection thē that which appeares without and is discouered by the eye and therefore they were praysed as soone as made but the goodnes and perfection of man consists not in the exteriour nor the outward shew but in the interiour out of all reach of eyes Omnis gloria eius filiae regis ab intus al the glory of man who is the sonne of God Psal 44.14 is comming frō the interiour as also all that which is in him pleasing to the eyes of God Man seeth that which appeares without saith God to Samuel but God beholds the hart 1. Reg. 16 the end the intention with which each or doth do his works and therefore he did not prayse man presētly after he had created him as he did al other Creaturs The intention is the root and foundation of all the good perfection which is in our Actions We cānot see those great massy stones which are throwne into the

in his sight Iust so he who hath bestowed his heart one God and banished from him all affection of creaturs although he should be incompast with the world in the middle of all its pleasures and delights would yet still continue in an inward quiet solitude as taking no pleasure in any of those things nor so much as regarding them hauing his heart rauished and drowned in contemplation of his beloued They saith S. Gregory who are arriued to this do inioy a great repose trāquility in their soules nothing being forcible inough to molest or disquiet them no aduersity can make their quiet lesse nor any prosperity their ioy greater vaine glory no humane excellence can bring them acquainted with but as they are affectioned vnto no earthly thing so are they not troubled nor intangled with the succese of any but reckon them as thing which do concerne thē nothing Would you know saith this Saints who hath ariued to this perfection built himselfe this Hermitage solitude The holy Prophet Dauid where he sais Psal 26.4 I haue demaunded one thing of our Lord this I shall beseech that I may inhabit in the house of our Lord all the dayes of my life There is nothing els in heauen and earth that I desire besides your selfe O God And now what is my expectation Psal 38.8 is it not our Lord The Blessed Abbot Siluanus was arriued to this to whom when he came from prayer all the world seemed such a wretched thing as lifting vp his handes through admiration shutting his holy eyes he would say with great disdaine Close vp your selues myne eyes close vp your selues and do not vouchsafe to looke abroad vpon the creatures those wordly thinges since in all the world there is nothing worthy the behoulding Lib. 1. c. 2 vitae S. Ignat We read also of our B. F. S. Ignatius that when he eleuated his mind to God and his eyes to heauen he vsed to say Oh how foule and vgly the earth doth seeme to me when I do but looke on Heauen The second degree may be that Bern. trac de dilig Deo cap. 6 7. which S. Bernard proposes in his treatise of the loue of God which is whē we do not only wholy forget all exteriour thinges but also our selues louing our selues no otherwise then in God by God and for God and we ought so wholy to be plunged in this forgetfullnes of our selues to be so free from al particuler interest of our own and to loue God with a loue so pure perfect that we are to reioice be no otherwise taken with those graces which we receaue from his all giuing hand neither with that heauēly glory which we hope for then so farre as his will and pleasure appeareth in them without regarding our owne profit in them In this manner the Blessed in heauen reioice in their felicity not because they are exalted to such heigth of glory but because it is Gods pleasure that they should be so and they seeke God with a loue so refined and pure are so straictly vnited and transformed into his blessed will that they desire not so much the glory which they possesse nor their felicity for their owne ioy and happines nor for the wondrous content which they do take therein as because it is the pleasure and the will of God We ought sayth S. Bernard so to loue God as that holy Prophet did who sayd Let vs confesse vnto our Lord because he is good he sayd not because he is good to me but only because he is good He did not prayse nor loue God only because he was good to him Psal 117.1 as this other did of whom it is writen He will confesse to thee when thou shalt haue done well vnto him but he loues and glorifyes God because he is good in himselfe because he is what he is because his goodnes is infinite S. Bernard sayes that the third and the last degree of the perfection of the loue of God is VVhen one now doth come to doe his actions not so much to please God as because God delighteth him or because that which he doth is pleasing and acceptable vnto God Whereby a man becomes to haue no other solicitude or thought but only how to delight and please Almighty God without thinking any more vpō himselfe then if there were not or euer had beene such a creature in the world and this is a most pure perfect loue of God This loue sayth the Saint is a mountaine and a high moūtaine of God a rich fertill mountaine full of all exquisite perfection By a mountaine of God is signifyed nothing els then a heigth and abstract of all greatnes and excellence VVho shall ascend into the mountaine of God who shall giue me winges like a Doue Psal 231.3 Psal 54.7 and I will fly away and go to rest Ah miserable as I am sayth this glorious Saint that I cannot wholy forget my selfe during this banishment Rom. 7.24 Oh me vnhappy man who shal deliuer me from the body of this death Isa 38.14 Oh Lord I suffer violence answere for me Blessed Lord when shall I wholy dy vnto my selfe and only liue to thee Oh woe is me for that my pilgrimage is prolonged Psal 119.5 41.3 when shall I come appeare before the face of God! Oh when shall I be deliuered from this woefull banishment When shall I be wholy vnited and through loue transformed into you O Lord When shal I be intirely free and quit of all remembrance of my selfe by being made one spirit one thing with you So as I may not hereafter loue any thing in me frō me or for me but that all which may haue any part of my affection may be in you by you for you only to loose thy selfe in a certaine māner Bern. de diligendo Deum c. 7 as if thou wert not at all to haue no sence no feeling of thy selfe so wholy to depart from all thou art as for to leaue no memory that thou euer weart this would haue more of heauenly conuersation then any humayne affection Such perfectiō is rather heauenly then of earth and sauours more of our owne country then of this dungion of our banishment Psal 70.10 The Prophet likewise saies I wil enter into the mightines of my Lord O Lord I will remēber only thy Iustice. When the good and faithfull seruant shall be so rauished drowned in the ioy of his Lord and inebriated with the aboundance of his loue then he shall be so absorpt and transformed into God to haue no remembrance of himselfe When he appeares we shall be like vnto him Ioan. 3.2 because we shal see him as he is we shall be thē like vnto God and the Creature shall haue a kind of proportion with his Creatour for as the holy Scripture sayes euen as God hath created al thinges for himself to his glory so we shal thē loue God withall purity not louing our selues nor any thing els but only in him He shall truely reioyce Matth. 25 21. not so much for being aboue all necessity nor for inioying all felicity as for to see his holy will in vs and of vs fullfilled all our ioy shall not consist in our ioy but in the ioy of God and his delight Intra in gaudium Domini tui This is to enter into the ioy of God Bern. de dilig Deū cap. 7. S. Bernard breakes forth into an excellent exclamation saying O holy o chast loue o sweet o sugred affection of pure o refined intention of the will the more pure and refined the lesse mixture it hath of ought that is its owne the more sweet more sugred the more it partakes of that which is al diuine Sic affici deificari est It is a deifying to be so affected like as S. Iohn sayes then we shal be like to God S. Bernard to explicate the manner of this deification transformation into God brings three similitudes Like as sayth he a droppe of water let fall into a whole tunne of Wine presently looseth all its qualityes and properties and becomes perfect wine both in colour in tast like as the Iron when it is through hot glowing in the forge appeares not to be Iron but al fire and as the Ayre when it is fully inlightned with the rayes of the Sunne is so transformed into brightnes that it seemes to be but one light with the Sunne so sayth he in that eternall felicity we loose all humane faculties and become deifyed and transformed in God All that we shall loue there wil be only for God and that is only God for otherwise how shall he be all to all 1. Cor. 15.28 if any thing shall remaine in man of man There shal be nothing there which is our owne since all our delight and glory shall be no other thē the pleasure and glory of God Psal 3.4 Thou art my glory and the lif●er vp of my head then we shall not care to repose nor sustain our selues with our owne happines since all our felicity and rest shal be in God But although whilest we are in this valley heere we cānot arriue vnto the sight of this yet are we at least to bend our eyes that wayes since the neerer we shall come to the sight of it the more perfect vnited shall we be with God Bern. l. 2. de amore Dei cap. 4. And so this blessed Saint concludes This is o heauenly Father the will of thy Blessed Sonne in vs this is his prayer for vs to thee his Father and God I will that like as I and you are one so that they should be one in vs and we with him through the vnion of perfect loue to wit that they may loue thee for thy selfe not themselues but only in thee this is the end this is the consummation this the perfection this the peace this the ioy of our Lord this is the ioy in the Holy Ghost this is the silence which is in heauen This is the vtmost ayme of all our thoughts the end of our Pilgrimage and the last degree of perfectiō to which we may attaine FINIS