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
Apostle 4. When you heare it so often mentioned that we ought to performe acts of the love of God let not that produce a beliefe in you that it is in our own power without grace to love God with such a love as we owe him For it is so sublime a thing to love God as it transcends all the power of Nature It is requisite that God by his grace unite his power unto our whole faculties to inable us to forme one single act of the love of God And indeed there is a necessity of Gods giving us his grace love for our loving him because of our selves we are unable to doe it without his assistance and we render our selves unworthy of it by our sins 5. I will not then enjoyn you to make often acts of the love of God but say onely that you must often request this love and dispose your selfe to receive it And above all you are to annihilate in your soule as much as you can possibly all that may divert God from giving you this love or hinder the love of God from raigning in your heart This is the most important point for to implore the love of God and to live quite contrary is but to mock and deride him 6. It is not enough to aske it of God but you must likewise desire it fervently And surely I wish that this desire may be great in your soule that it may be the powerfullest of all your inclinations and the most lively affection which raignes in you For to desire love is a strong disposition unto love And truly one can hardly desire the love of God without a present concession of it 7. Nay I could wish for the benefit of your soule that you had no other desire then to love God and please him in all things and that every moment you did awaken in your self this desire of loving God O what great things would he operate in you Surely your life would be pleasing and all things out of God indifferent to you Endeavour that your exercises of piety and the most usuall occupations of your soule even when you are distributing Almes be with an intention to increase this desire to nourish and practice it I meane that all your employments and exercises of vertue should be either fruits of love or meanes to attaine unto the love of God Above all in the use of the Sacraments I wish you to retaine this pure intention for if at any time you are to seek the means of acquiring the love of God it is by receiving the holy Sacraments principally that of Confession and Communion Wherefore when you Confesse and Communicate endeavour that it may be alwayes with this love and with an intention thereby to introduce the love of God 8. It imports you very much to have a good and pure intention in all that you shal doe Now the Intention which I wish you alwayes to have is to act and suffer all for the pure love of God for God ought to be the object and end of your life and actions There are some who regard their proper interest and doe every thing to the end they may merit I doe not condemne them but I advise not you to proceed in this manner for it is a mercenary intention I contrariwise conjure you to doe nothing but for the pure love of God If you doe all for God God will doe all for you if you give all unto God he will give himselfe entirely unto you and that ought to suffice you 9. In few words I desire that Charity and Love may be the object of all your actions the subject of your imployments the most ordinary exercise of your life and piety Surely if you have a fervent desire to love God all this will be easie to you and by the same degrees as this desire shall increase by the same you will advance in the love of God and Vertue 10. It is not enough to demand desire the love of God you must cooperate also in this point I will recommend onely two things unto you and in my opinion they will suffice 11. The first is that you be very carefull to keep your conscience pure and free from sin and above all ingrave in your soule this disposition which ought to remaine alwayes in the centre of your heart to wit that for no worldly respect you offend God and that neither the goods nor evils of this life procure you to doe any thing against the Commandments of God My meaning is that neither the love nor feare of men nor the world or mutuall complacency draw you to offend God how little soever it be 12. The other point which I would recommend unto you is the giving your heart wholly unto God for it is created onely for him By your heart I understand your love and I meane that you beware of fixing your selfe unto the Creature by love and affection And I intend by this Creature the world temporall goods and all earthly things 13. I know very wel that you cannot live without love but that which I recommend unto you is the remaining in the world and in the use of creatures without placing your heart and affection on them But since you ought to love God who is infinitely amiable and coÌ„mands you to love him above all things there is nothing difficult in this which I propose to you for there is nothing sweeter or more facile then Love and I only beg of you to prefer God above all creatures is there any thing more reasonable 14. Remember this principle which is alwayes veritable that a foule by the same degrees she fastens her selfe by love unto the creature by the same doth she loosen and seperate her self from God and as much as she sever's her self from the creature so much doth she unite her self and approach unto God Consider well this maxime to reap profit by it for if you will love God with your heart and if the desire which you have to love God be sincere you will be very carefull not to adhere unto any creature which is all I recommend unto you 15. But in this point of the love of God beware of being like unto the Jewes and Pharisees who Fasted Prayed gave Almes and bare on their foreheads the written Law of Moses and yet their hearts were wholy alienated from God you must needs understand my meaning without farther explanation 19. Take heed also that you resemble not those who speak much and do little Finally be not like unto the Samaritans who adored Idols and the true God in one and tâ—â—… same Temple To love God and the Creature both together are things incompatible for true love is neither partiall nor divided but intire cordiall and perfect Still call to mind that the heart of man is created wholy for God And he ought to love God alone or if he love any other thing let it be for God and in order to God 17.
be esteemed and honoured by men Wherefore in view of the contempt which you indure I purpose to alter my course of life and to imitate you if I can and with this resolution I cast my selfe at your feet O my Iesus I adore your profound humility I implore the power of this vertue to come upon me and I give my selfe intirely to you to beare the effects thereof in such sort as to you shall seem good I know very well that I ought to affect humiliations confusions and contempts I know that they are my portion they are the most conformable to my state since I am a sinner But my perverted spirit and quite corrupted nature is averse thereunto Neverthelesse Lord I will love you succour only my weaknesse annihilate my aversions and fortifie my will that I may put in practise the good resolution which I have taken in your presence Point III. IESUS beares the Rigours Dolours and Humiliations which our sinnes have merited It is for this cause he presents himselfe unto the people to suffer and unto his Father to satisfie his justice Cast your selfe at his feet O my soule and say affectionately Behold the man whom I seeke for he is my Jesus my Saviour and my All I see him I embrace him and I resolve that he shall be my King and reigne alone in my heart PRAYER AT the sight of what you act and suffer for me O my Iesus I remaine distracted and fall into a kind of rapture for what am I Lord And what need have you of me that you should seeke my salvation at the cost of so many labours What is there in my soule capable of inviting you to offer your selfe unto your Father to appease by your torments his Justice which I have irritated by my offences Surely is is nothing but love which exercising the power and rigour thereof made you become man and suffer death for me O Love how powerfull art thou since thou hast reduced my Iesus into state wherein I contemplate him in his life and death O Love how strong is thine arme since thou hast drawne my Iesus from the Throne of his glory to place him in humiliations and to subject him to so many paines Love if thou hast power over my God must not thou have it over my heart No there is no meanes to withstand it whatsoever it costs I must love him who hath loved us more then his own life who in giving himselfe requires nothing but our love I resigne my self then unto you ô Love of my Soule to love you with my whole heart Grant onely if you please that I may love nothing but you for you both command and oblige me to love you I am content but unable to do it without your grace Effect then this work in me of loving you and loosen my heart from all earthly affections to the end I may entirely unite my selfe to you And be pleased to give mee a holy inability which may render me uncapable of severing my selfe from you and of loving any other IESUS carrieth his Crosse Point I. COnsider the hunger and insatiable thirst the extreme love and desire which Jesus hath to suffer for us having never said It is enough nor refusing any torments which are inflicted on him allowing all persons to torture him Ask of Jesus that he would vouchsafe to estrange you from the pleasures of the world and admit no longer any repugnancy in your selfe to indure for his sake PRAYER O Amiable Iesus How just is it that I now confesse the excesse of your love and acknowledge the mercies which you shew me for you are not satisfied in purchasing me by the profusion of your bloud and appeasing the divine Justice by your death but excited by the love which you beare me and by a desire of my salvation you expose your selfe to all sorts of confusions and by a divine patience you refuse no tortures and shun no paines which impiety invents to make you suffer At the sight of so much goodnesse and at the object of your vertues what can I do lesse whereby I may become the most acceptable to you then imitate your life and imbrace with you all crosses and sufferances For I know you have said of it that he is unworthy of you who beares not his crosse with you and refuses to follow you I purpose then O Saviour of my soule I purpose willingly to follow you and renouncing my owne pleasures sufferance shall be my onely love and delight I cannot effect it without your grace be pleased therefore to bestow it on me for without you I can do nothing and with you I am inabled to doe all things Point II. IESUS loaden with his Crosse sinkes under the burthen not of the heavinesse of the wood but under the weight of our offences wherewith he charged himselfe before the Iustice of his Father And in view of the whole world he carrieth the confusion and contempt which our crimes have merited Beg of him the spirit and gift of Penance to the end taking part in the satisfactions of Christ Jesus you may endeavour in some measure by your self to satisfy God whom you have so often offended PRAYER MY Iesus give me light to discerne the weight of sinne the grace to detest it as it deserveth and love to become repentant as I ought for I intend Lord to doe Penance I know that you have suffered for me and that you died to give me life and to associate me to the number of your children And true it is that all that you have done was only to obtaine pardon for my offences and to satisfie for the paine due unto my crimes finally it is true Lord that your merits are infinite But yet it is likewise just and you give it me in command that I alter my course of life and doe Penance to sati fie your divine Justice for otherwise I cannot partake of the satisfaction of your Crosse nor of the merits of your sufferings Be pleased then to bestow on me the spirit of Penance and the zeale of your Justice that I may exercise it on my selfe But vouchsafe to give it me from this instant for feare lest I be surprized and excepting the houre of death and the day of vengeance I find my selfe unworthy of mercy I desire to prevent lest I be prevented It is a blessing which depends on you and which I beg of you with my whole heart Point III. COnsider the humiliation which Jesus hath borne in the thoughts and judgements of men who esteemed him strucken and reproved condemned and abandoned even of God himselfe judging him worthy of all the torments which he indured Render him thanks for supporting all this in satisfaction for the pride of men and from henceforth strive to affect humility and learn to despise the vaine judgements which may be made of you PRAYER ALl the sinnes of men O amiable Iesus are the cause of your death but pride which
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
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
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
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
it to be an exercise absolutely necessary especially for such as live in the world and desire to lead a vertuous life in the midst of the turmoyles and distractions which are frequent in our ordinary course of life We cannot doubt but that the most part of Christians have their spirits still distracted their thoughts wandring their hearts divided and if every one will consider in what manner he liveth he shall perceive that the soule is but seldome within the body wholly distracted and as it were evaporated into exteriour things which is a great misfortune to her Now it is requisite to find out a meanes to recall her surely I see none better then that of the presence of God in the same manner as I explicate it Make use of it if you please and you shall find by experience that there is nothing more profitable and advantagious I recommend it as much as I can possibly for if every one would but consider at leisure the disposition of his own soule he should discerne that it will be almost impossible for him to performe any exercise of piety as one ought if he place not himselfe in the presence of God for this posture is absolutely necessary to recall our soule which is straying and to render her attentive to what she is doing and moreover this is necessary in respect we cannot performe any good work without the grace of God And when the soule is thus presented unto God she craves assistance and grace of him without which she is unable to act any thing This is what I desire to offer unto you I beseech our Lord to affect you with it and to favour u◠all with his grace to prepare ou◠hearts for him and to render us worthy of his love THese or what other Erraeta's the Printer through his unskilfulnesse in this Language hath committed the courteous Reader may please to pardon and correct thus Errata Pag. 33. l. 10. read require you p. 107. l. 8. r. into the state p. 111. l. 6 7. r. I know and you have said it p. 114. l. 14. r. expecting DEVOUT ENTERTAINMENTS OF A CHRISTIAN SOULE Of the love of GOD The first Entertainment §. 1. Of the Excellency and Necessity of Love 1. THe first thing I desire to propose unto you upon this subject and which I would gladly engrave in your heart is the acknowledging that the reasonable creature was created by God for no other end then to love and serve him This is a verity which I beseech you often to consider and if you can call it often every day into your thoughts 2. In order to this principle remember that you have no right to live on earth but to love and serve God for all that you have in the world whereof God hath given you the use he hath put it into your hands onely to testifie his love and to oblige you to love him so that all things ought to serve you as motives to love him who hath bestowed them on you For as God hath created nothing which doth not raise you to the knowledge of him if you will consider it so hath he made nothing which doth not attract you unto his love and fastens you to him if you bring no opposition thereunto 3. You know very well that we are obliged to love God above all things with our whole heart and soule c. It is a Commandement which Jesus Christ calls Maximum the greatest in as much as it compriseth all the duties of a soule towards God and if you can accomplish this you will doubtlesse fulfill all the rest Wherefore esteeme principally this Commandment examine your selfe seriously upon this point and omit not to accuse your selfe of it in Confession whensoever you faile therein 4. As God doth nothing but to oblige us to love him so he demands nothing of us but love This moved the Apostle to say that the whole law of God is accomplished in loving God Wherfore all your exercises ought to tend onely unto love I meane that all the practices of piety all your desires all your prayers and even the use of the Sacraments ought to aime onely at the placing you in the love of God to establish conserve and advance you therein Finally you are to act nothing but by love or for the obtaining the love of God 5. Consider this vertue as the onely happinesse of your soule for by charity we adhere unto God and are united and conjoyned unto him Nor can you be ignorant that all the good and happinesse of the soule consists onely in her being united unto God and adhering inseparably to him because he that adheres unto God saith the Apostle becomes one spirit His meaning is that Charity invests us with divine properties and makes us little Gods 6. We should be very unfortunate if God did not love us Now he loveth us onely to the end we should love him and in loving us he can give us nothing of greater value then love For it is love onely which renders is happy It is love onely which gives us God and unites us to him Love onely guides us unto God Briefly it is by love onely that we become acceptable to God and nothing is agreeable to him but what is done in love See then what that soule loseth which wants this love and of how little account all exercises are without this act of love 7. All other vertues may be found amongst the good and bad but Charity only is the character and stamp of Gods children Finally she is the Queen which commands all the powers of the soule and every thing obeyes her And to speak it in a word she is the true vertue for take away Love and Charity all that is tearmed Vertue is so but superficially and in appearance 8. This is enough to affect you with the desire of acquiring Charity and Divine Love But to know how one may obtaine it and by what meanes we may attaine unto the possession of this happinesse is the subject wherewith I intend to entertain you §. II. Of the meanes to attaine unto the love of God 1. TO acquire Charity which we call Love we must earnestly demand it of God besides wee ought frequently to desire it Finally we must labour seriously therein and act on our part what wee are able These are three points which I am to explicate 2. To affect God with a supernaturall Love is a pure gift of God Wherefore I advise you to beg it of him continually And the first thing you are to aske of him is that you may love him as he would have you conformable to your obligation 3. When I say continually I meane that the most usual Prayer you are to make and the grace which you ought to demand still of God is to have Charity and Love for if you possesse this love you have all and if you want it whatsoever else you may have is of no value saith the
I do not doubt but that you will meet at first with some difficulties in these practices but do not think that before the Judgment of Almighty God you can be exempt from paine and labour On the contrary you ought to animate your self for love and charity which gives us God and opens Paradise to us deserves well that we labour seriously to acquire it and that we be very careful to conserve it if God vouchsafe to bestow it on us 18. To assist you in the acquisition of charity or rather to dispose you to receive it from the hand of God I conceive it fit for you to practice the three ensuing Acts which I am going to set before you 19. The first is that you enter into the poor simple thought of that love and charity which Jesus Christ hath for you or else consider how the Son of God is all love Then stay as little as you please upon this thought adore in your heart this love of Jesus with an humble respect After this you offer your self unto Christ Jesus and give your self intire to Him open your heart to Him to the end he may infuse into it the spirit of love even as he possesseth the plenitude thereof and according to the intention he hath that you should love God 20. The second is that you renounce cheerfully all that diverts you from loving God and beseech Christ Jesus to indue you with a hatred against all that is opposite unto this love or which may separate you from God 21. The third is that you resolve to be very circumspect to avoide all that hinders you from loving God Now nothing is a greater obstacle to it then mortall sinne and the love of Creatures And to aide you herein entertain your self sometimes in thoughts which may produce love in you At least endeavour as much as you may that no day passe away without some spirituall Lecture which may incourage you in these practices of love and charity You may perform these three acts in the form which I am going to prescribe you 22. My Lord and my God! I adore you as the increated love I give my self unto your love to bear the effects thereof in what manner you shall please and I renounce all that is repugnant in me to the love which I owe you Be pleased to gives me only the grace that I may divest my self of all that is opposite unto your love and that henceforward I may accept of nothing which is averse unto it 23. I particularly recommend unto you this last exercise in as much as the eternall Father bestows nothing on us but by his Sonne especially no Graces and Vertues And because our works have no other merit before God then what they receive from Jesus Christ I say that in this exercise you should give and offer your selfe unto Christ Jesus to the end he may bestow on you what is necessary and set on your workes and good intentions the price and value which they are to beare in the sight of God finally that you may reduce into act the desire you have of loving God 24 Moreover when God is pleased to confer any grace on us he would have us to cooperate with it without this cooperation his gifts arc fruitlesse Now we begin to cooperate when we give our selves unto Jesus Christ to beare the effects of the vertue which we desire of him and when we renounce all that is repugnant to it These are the reasons which invite mee so earnestly to recommend unto you this exercise These are the few entertainments which I purpose to present unto you concerning the acquisition practice of Charity Let us treat now of Prayer OF PRAYER AND Of the Presence of God The second Entertainment §. I. Concerning the Excellency of Prayer 1. WE are all bound to pray it is the duty of the Soule it is a lesson which Iesus Christ gave unto his Apostles and Disciples it is the practice of the Church and the customs of all Christians And God will have us to be sensible o◠our infirmities and miseries and acknowledge our poverty to the end wee may resort unto him and that he may be honoured by our prayers 2. Prayer is an entertainment communication of the soule with God and of God with the soule And in Prayer the soule elevates her self unto God and God vouchsafes to descen◠unto the soule 3. Prayer well made is a mirrour wherein the soule behold her selfe and where shee finde what shee is and somtimes she learnes thereby to know God and begins to relish him 4. Prayer obtaines all things for us Prayer teacheth all It is finally the food and aliment of the soule and so necessary that as without naturall meat the body languisheth so doth the soule without Prayer §. II. Of the Presence of God in Prayer 1. I Advise you then to set your affection upon Prayer There are two sorts thereof the one vocall the other mentall I will not take from you vocall Prayer because it is very good but indeed I counsell you not to charge and oblige your selfe unto many vocall Prayers 2 Nor will I oblige you unto mentall Prayer for few persons are capable of entertaining the inselves with it Neverthelesse I conceive it usefull nay necessary for you to make choice every day of some point or verity of faith to meditate on it as long as you please 3 It is an exercise which I propose to you as necessary for most certaine it is that every one hath need of recalling his spirit and evidently your mind is the more straying and distracted the more you remaine in the world Wherefore if you have any care of your salvation you must strive to recollect your soule which is so much ingaged in exteriour things as it may be said to be scarce in your body 4 Now the true meanes for recalling your soule is to place your selfe every day in the presence of God and to remaine some time in silence taking some good thought for your entertainment 5 What time you shall make choice of I leave unto your own conveniency at least I advise you to take part of the holy Masse for your meditation and to imploy it in this exercise but do it with affection As for the saying of your Beads or other vocall Prayers you may finde time enough If I may be credited you will preferre this little recollection before all the rest for it is more important then it seemeth and experience will teach it you if you please 6. What proportion of time you will imploy therein I leave unto your own zeale and devotion I beseech you onely not to faile in taking every day some good thought and seriously to stay upon it though it be but for some small time and if it be possible doe this every morning Affectionate your selfe unto this exercise which is briefe and will prove more facile then you imagine however it is profitable
for you and I dare say in a manner necessary 7. The subject which you are to take for your entertainment shall be the Passion of the Son of God or the foure finall ends of man sometimes Gods love towards you sometimes the vanity of all things finally take some point of Faith or of the Creed for your application 8. The manner and method which you are to observe herein must be very naturall I doe not require to make use of reason or discourse but of your affection and will Apply your whole heart unto it and that sufficeth procure also that your attention therein bee entire 9. The first thing you must doe is to place your selfe in the presence of God because in all your prayers you speak with God and treat of things of great consequence for you speak to him of the honour and love you owe him you treat concerning your owne salvation and the benefits of your soule 10 This exercise or practice of the presence of God is absolutely necessary for you for if you have a care of your salvation and desire to live in the feare of God surely you ought to know how to keepe your selfe continually in the presence of God remembring still that in what place sâ—eveâ— you are God sees and considers you not exterâ—â—lly onely but even into the center of your heart The presence of God is an exercise which detaines the soule and obligeth her to act nothing which may bee unworthy of God 11. Moreover when you will pray and what Prayer soever you make were it but saying the Pater noster or your Beads you still ought to doe it with respect and attention for sure you cannot performe these Devotions as you ought if your spirit be not recollected Now the means of recollecting your minde is to place your selfe in the presence of God Wherefore I advise you to habituate your selfe in this exercise I meane to place and keepe your selfe often in the presence of Almighty God 12. You will say peradventure that you are not able to fix your spirit to which I answer that it is no good signe and for this reason you ought to pity your self For how can you hear well the holy Masse say well your ordinary prayers use the Sacrament of Penance or communicate as you ought if you know not how to setle your cogitation see you not that this is to be sick indeed without discerning it Now the practice of the presence of God as I will explicate it to you is the true only remedy for your disease 13. It is a practice which is common necessary for all good Christians who are willing to avoid sin preserve themselves in grace or desire to treat with God with that respect as becoms them this is what I desire that in the beginning of your prayer you place your self attentively in the presence of God 14. You may do it in two manners The first by imagination when you recall your mind and all the powers of your soul and when you represent God unto your self with a Majesty worthy God and figuring to your selfe that you are prostrated before the Throne of his infinite greatnesse and that you remain there to treat with him about the affaires of your soule and what concerneth the service and worship which you owe him 15. The other manner is by faith then you make no use of your imagination but having sweetly called back your soule into it selfe you conceive your selfe to be before God whose greatnesse and Majestie is infinite and incomprehensible that this is the same God whom the Angells and Saints do serve and adore You consider how faith teacheth you that this self same God is every where and he presides in the bottome and center of your soule with the same Majesty Power and Love as he doth in Heaven Rest somtime upon this thought and if you can procure to enter into your owne heart to adore God as you conceive him to be there 16. This last manner of considering the Presence of God seems to me more beneficiall then any other and hath more force to recall our spirit and to bring back our soule into her selfe it teacheth us to seeke God not as farre distant from us or in Heaven but in our selves and in the center of our heart And for this reason I advise you to make often use of this exercise for I promise that you shall derive from it great advantages And if you shall persevere you will make a little Paradise of your heart and your soule will performe on earth what the Angells doe in Heaven §. III. A manner how to recollect ones selfe for mentall Prayer 1. AT the first entrance then into Prayer place your self in the presence of God conformably to the manner I have newly exhibited to you And if this thought of Gods presence possesseth your soule and retaines you in great attention keep your selfe therein as long as you can were it during the whole Masse and omit without scruple the rest of your devotions for you enter not into the Church and apply not your selfe unto Prayer but to remaine before God to adore him with respect and humility and to keepe your selfe in his presence as his devout servant When you have attained unto this rest content since God seems to be so with you And in this case you are to desire nothing more because you have all when God is satisfied 2. And if this thought of Gods presence will not serve to entertaine you any long time in that case take presently some verity or mystery for your meditation For example consider how Iesu Christ hath loved you so much as to suffer death for you Then pawse a while how little soever you please to consider this benefit strive onely to ponder it with attention And out of this consideration endeavour to extract some little affection or frame some conference with God upon that which you considered Now to the end it may prove more facile to you I prescribe at the end of this Booke some Meditations upon the principall points of the Passion of our Lord Iesus Christ which will serve you for a Modell 3. During the little time you shall employ in this manner of Prayer if God gives you some good inspiration or pious desire do not neglect it but hearken unto God and receive his grace and inspiration with respect and love Resolve to put in practice what God proposeth to you and give your selfe unto Christ Iesus and his holy Mother the Virgin Mary to the end they may be pleased to preserve in your soule the good desires which you feele and supplicate them to give you the grace to put them in practice conformable to that manner which God requires of you 4. The profit which I would have you to make of this exercise which I call recollection of spirit is to establish and preserve your selfe in the feare of God to excite and advance
your selfe in his love and to induce in you a hatred unto the vanity of the world The vertues which you ought most to put in practice are humility of spirit unadherence unto creaures and the mortification of the cupidities passions of your soul 5. Now what I have discoursed to you concerning the presence of God in that Prayer which we cal Mentall you ought to practice in all your Vocall Prayers when you will begin to say your Beads or the office of our blessed Lady or els when you prepare your selfe for Confession or Communion Briefly in all your Devotions let the first thing you do be the recalling of your minde the withdrawing it from all sorts of objects and place your selfe in the presence of God in such a manner as I have proposed to you 6. Chiefly when you come before God be it in the Church or in your Oratory present your self alwaies with a comportment full of respect strive to place your selfe in an humble and Christian reverence for you are in the presence of God before whom all the Grandeurs of heaven earth are but dust Principally I recommend unto you the detestation of all petty wantonnesses levities and all such effeminate fashions In a word avoid all affectation in the presence of God before whom the Angels tremble live only in a profound respect and reverence You may now well judge how much reason I have to condemn those complements which are used in the Church those curiosities and vain discourses God preserve you from such disorders which oblige God to withdraw himselfe from the soule 7. At the end of all your Prayers and even out of Prayers as often as you may at the instant of your waking in the morning I wish and desire you to performe two things which are very facile 8. The one is to offer your self unto God and to give your selfe to him to remaine wholly his in conformity to his holy will The other is to renounce your selfe and all that leads you unto evill or diverts you from doing that good which God requires of you is for example you may say or mediate on these words My God my Iesus I offer my self unto you as my Lord on whom I will depend all my life time and I renounce all that severeth me from you and may divert me from following and fulfilling your holy will 9 But still remember that God is not content with words he will have the heart and requires effects Wherefore endeavour to put in practice all that I have proposed to you in these few entertainments and above all exercise your selfe in the practice of such vertues as God shall inspire you for he will exact an account of all the graces which he conferres on you and of all the occasions which he presents unto you of doing good OF CONFESSION AND COMMUNION The third Entertainment §. I. I. THere remaines one thing to tell you but it is of consequence and I wish that I were able to fix it in the bottome and center of your heart It relates unto Confesion Communion I will entertaine you with it because I verie much apprehend that there are great abuses committed therein and I feare that in so holy and divine a thing we are often too prophane 2. By the Sacrament of Confession it is certaine that we desire to return into Gods favour we seek to bee re-established in the charity which we have lost by mortall sinne and which we cannot repossesse but by Penance And though we be free from mortall sin we yet desire by Penance to remove the other sins which freeze charity breed a languishing in the soule debilitate and expose her unto greater danger And then wee goe unto Confession to renew our selves in love and to remove these sins and all that may be opposite unto love and charity 3. In the holy Communion we receive Iesus Christ as ours for hee appertaines to us and the same Iesus gives himselfe unto us in this divine and adorable Sacrament to honour us with his presence to inrich us with his gifts and above all to conferre on us his love In fine it is a Sacrament all of love it is a pledge of the love which Iesus Christ beareth us and a commerce of love between Iesu Christ and men 4. Now if you consider in this order these two great Sacraments doth it not seeme just and reasonable that we receive them with estimation holily and with a spirit of love since both of them are holy both of them conferre charity and the love of God upon us both of them unite us unto God when we come to them as we ought with fitting and congruous dispositions 5. For this reason I could wish that when you goe unto Confession or Communion it may bee still accompanied with a sense of love and a serious recollection of your soule Beware of going to them by custome and of performing so holy and divine actions indifferently I meane without a good and fitting disposition for it would turn to your prejudice 6. That which I require of you is to retaine alwayes a pure intention of seeking God onely and demanding nothing but love Let it be your desire to forsake those vices and sinnes whereof you seek to obtaine remission by Penance Bee you sorrowfull for having committed because sin is displeasing to God and opposite unto him whom we desire to love Finally I wish that all the motives which you shall have in receiving the Sacraments may bee alwaies with respect to the love which God hath towards you and of the love which you owe unto God for let men say what they please since in the receiving the Sacraments of Penance and of the Eucharist you seeke nothing but the love of God and charity surely it is reasonable that you go to them with as much love as you can possibly This is that whereunto I invite you 7. I doe not say that feare is not good usefull and often necessary but I say that feare ought to serve here onely for the recalling of your soule and directing her unto love It ought to be like the servant which opens the gate unto charity to introduce it into your heart Take then the motives of feare if you have need of them but stay not upon this feare but passe unto love still calling to minde that in these two Sacraments you seeke the friendship of Almighty God Thus much touching Penance and in the Eucharist you ask and receive God onely who is love and charity 8. In the Communion it is requisite to have feare accompanied with a profound reverence and humble respect An Angelicall devotion and attention is required therein for this mystery is full of Majesty since God is there present whom we intend to receive But much more love is required therein for whatsoever wee consider there nothing but objects of love appeare to us and nothing is to be found there that is not as
justice of a God whom I have so often irritated What shall I doe O God of mercy but endeavour to prevent the day of your Justice and from henceforth begin to satisfie by a holy Penance for all the sinnes which I have committed ungratefull and mserable wretch that I am I heartily desire it but am unable to effect it without your grace Assist me then O God of love and goodnesse bestow on me a true contrition for my offences Breake my heart with griefe melt my heart in your love liquifie my soule in Charitie fill my will with a hatred of sinne and grant me the grace never more to offend you It is what I desire with my whole heart to the end I may give my selfe entirely to you and renounce my selfe and all creatures which sever me from you Point III. BEhold in this mystery the love of Jesus who exerciseth the power and rigours of it upon his own person this love abaseth him even unto our sorrowes and oppresseth him with paines and attristations so violently as he enters into an agonie even to sweat blood in ahundance he suffers all this to invest you with his vertue and cleanse you with his Bloud This love is what you ought to ask often of him and with great humility PRAYER CAn it possibly be O my Iesus that you should love me even to such a degree as I consider you in this misterie and I not love you Can I be so insensible as to see you languishing and suffering for my sinnes and not abandon them Alas my Saviour can I indure to see you bathed in your owne bloud and covered over with so painefull a sweat by the horrour which you conceive of my offences Can I have the heart to behold you in the rigours which the Justice of your Father exerciseth on you for my sinnes and that considering you in so pitifull a state I should not conceive a horrour of my pravitie and a detestation of my offences No no Lord I will hate my selfe to love you I will detest all vice for your sake and never more will I offend you and for a marke of my desire I give you my heart I offer you my soule I dedicate to you my life and renounce all that is displeasing to you to the end I may no longer offend you but live in all things conformable to your holy will This is the intention and desire of my soule but it will be fruitlesse if you stretch not out your arme and give me not your grace to accomplish them This is what I begge of you prostrated in your presence humbly imploring your divine Mercy The taking of IESUS in the Garden Point I. JESUS suffereth himselfe to be taken and deprives himself of his power who was able to annihilate his enemies to the end that being made captive for us hee might have right to place us in the freedome of grace In imitation of Jesus who suffered himselfe to be made a captive for you resolve never to make use of your owne power when there shall be any occasion of suffering for the glory of God PRAYER I Do not doubt my Saviour of your power but I admire your love which triumpheth over you and worketh so great a miracle on your selfe for love captivates your strength restraines your power and reduceth you into a state of impotency and weaknesse to the end you may be capable of suffering for mee poore and wretched creature that I am Who will not be ravished in the thought of this love And who will not remaine astonished that God suffers for man the just for the sinner And thus you doe benigne Iesus in this mistery which I contemplate Now for this love which you expresse towards me and which renders you captive to set me at liberty what else can I doe but cast my selfe with heart and spirit at your feet and become an humble suitor that your love may render mee his captive that it may triumph over my heart to the end being denuded of all things I may become for ever the slave of your love Grant that it may be so my Iesus since it is both my duty and desire Point II. JESUS perseveres in the humiliations and sufferances of his captivity remaining in the midst of executioners in silence without plaints without strength or power In imitation of him affect such things as humble you and administer occasion of sufferance and propose to your selfe never to reject them PRAYER SInce I see you O sweet Jesus in the midst of executioners exposed unto their malice and that in this mysterie you abandon your selfe unto all sorts of confusions and to the false accusations of sinners appearing as criminall in the midst of these miscreants what lesse can I doe Lord then annihilate my selfe in your presence and humble my selfe in imitation of you in the view of all creatures And if in the various states of your life you embraced humility onely and made choice of nothing but confusions if you who are alone worthy of honour and respect despised the Grandeurs of the earth and the vaine contentments of this world to live and die onely in depressions and sufferances Finally if you O benigne Iesus who are the onely Son of God were pleased to become an object of scorne and contempt of men alas what do I miserable wretch deserve to be and what rank shall I hold in the world I who am a sinner criminall and unworthy of all things Surely my sweet Iesus I heartily condemne my pride and doe protest that with my whole affection assisted by your holy grace which I implore I resolve from henceforth to affect lowlinesse and indure for your sake all the humiliations and Crosses of this life And why shall I refuse humbly to suffer them for your sake since you have indured them so holily for mine I offer my selfe then unto you for that effect and I abandon my selfe with my whole heart unto your divine conduct grant only that I may be such as you require me to be Point III ACknowledge the strange abasement of Jesus who permits men to binde and lead him captive and to touch him with their prophane hands who is the Holy of Holies Hee offers his sacred mouth to receive the kisse of Judas his greatest enemy Offer your selfe unto him to beare all the contradictions of men and the contempt of all creatures and demand of him even love for your enemies if you have any PRAYER YOur life and the divers mysteries of your passion your labours and sufferances O my Saviour give me a lesson and teach me what I am to doe but how shall I doe it and how can I imitate you if you lend me not your hand if you prevent and affist me not with your grace For my perverted heart and my proud nature oppose themselves wholly to you and contest against all that you propose unto me I see my Lord I see how you offer your sacred mouth
nothing but you It is high time and I implore it of you Be pleased then not to deny me this grace my good Iesus since you refuse me not your owne life deprive me of all things if you please provided that I love you Point II. IN this mystery Jesus covers his greatnesse and veiles his Majesty in contempts and mockeries and by a miracle of love he renders himselfe capable of suffering the sharpest points of thornes filthy and unclean spittings blowes and buffets which bruise his body and face and by this holy artifice which love hath contrived he triumpheth over the Devill and sin Open your heart unto this Jesus that he may place there the throne of his love and triumph over your malice and all the impure love which may reside in you PRAYER CAn I possibly behold you my Iesus covered with spittings bruised with blowes crowned with thornes and your body pierced with all sorts of dolors and not dissolve into teares but remaine insensible at the sight of so sad a spectacle Permit it not O God of love rather pierce my heart with griefe and give me the grace to have a sense of what you suffer for me Grant me this favour that I may beare the effects thereof for it is not just that your sacred body should be immersed in sorrow and your adorable head crowned with thorns whilest I bathe my selfe in pleasures or crowne my selfe with Roses living alwayes amongst delights I rather wish and would gladly implore if I had love enough that I might no longer affect any creature and that nothing might afford me contentment but that I might finde wormewood every where and every thing prove distastfull to me to the end I may take no delight but in you alone This is what I aspire to but I have not force enough to practice it nor sufficient love to aske it There remaines one onely desire on my part that I may give my selfe entirely to you to suffer whatsoever shall suit with your good pleasure Point III. JESUS in his Passion practiceth all sorts of vertues to merit them for us by the actuall exercise of them to leave them unto us by way of testament and to bring them into esteeme with the world which contemns and rejects humility patience poverty and all sufferances Addresse your selfe unto Jesus Christ to desire of him the love of his vertues and the grace to bee able to practice them in such a degree as hee requires of you PRAYER YOu have promised me O my God by your Prophet to engrave your love in the midst of my heart and to imprint it in the center of my soule I summon you in order to your promise for I offer unto you my heart opened and commit into your hands my soule and spirit to receive of you the motions of grace and the impressions of your law But what is this law which you give me but the imitation of your life and of the vertues which you have been pleased to practise on earth For you had no need my Lord of this great poverty which I discern in your birth of the patience which you shew in your torments of the obedience which sets you on the Crosse of meeknesse in the midst of your enemies nor of the humility and contempt of the world which is manifested in all your life But you have subjected your selfe unto all this not only for my salvation but also to teach me both by words and actions the vertues which you affect the way which I am to follow to obtain salvation and the life which I ought to lead to become the most acceptable to you In this sort your life and vertues O Jesus are the square of my actions and the rules which I am to follow Grant me then the grace that I may know them to esteeme them that I esteem them to love them and that I love them to practise them in such sort as you require of me For I am well assured that I shall have no share in your glory if I doe not imitate your vertues and shall not partake of your triumphs if I beare not a part in your combats Ecce Homo Point I. SEe the extreme confusion and contempt unto which Jesus is exposed since his owne people preferre a notorious Robber before him condemne him to the Crosse and demand his death to give life to a Malefactor O blindnesse of humane Spirit which makes more account of Terrene then Heavenly things which honours Barabas to reject Jesus Deplore this unhappinesse and beseech the same Jesus never to permit that humane respects or complacency may ever cause you to prefer men before God or the Creature before the Creator PRAYER LOrd I blush for shame and confusion seeing the little account is made of you that they condemne you unto the Crosse to give life to a Thiefe and reject you to receive Barabbas Neverthelesse this is done in your Passion and at present O unhappy soule I find even that in my selfe which I condemne in the Jewes for alas God of goodnesse how often in my life have I rejected your grace to obey the cupidities of my heart How often through a damnable blindnesse have I endeavoured to satisfie my selfe and please the Creature against your intentions Finally how often have I preferred the Earth before Heaven men before God and my owne private contentment before your holy will It is high time O Saviour of my soule that I acknowledge my fault that I change my life and open my eyes to discerne how the world is nothing to me and that you are my All. I confesse my crime I accuse my infidelity and condemn both my life and all my actions past Be pleased O good Jesus to give me a true repentance of them and grant that my heart may breake with sorrow and my eyes distill fountaines of teares to expiate all my offences for I desire my Iesus to satisfie your love and to live under your Lawes Point II. THe Sonne of God abaseth his holy and adorable humanity to become the reproach of men the refuse of his people and the object of their scorne and derision And he truly saith I am a worme of the earth At the sight of your Jesus dissolve into humility and affect rather to be low and humble with the humble Jesus then great and honour'd with Pilate PRAYER IF you say that you are but a worme of the earth the reproach of men and the refuse of the people what must I be my Iesus For it is just that I should be much lesse then your selfe If you hold so low a rank amongst men who are the Sonne of God what place shall I find who am but a sinner a child of Adam and unworthy of your grace O how much constrained do I now find my selfe to confesse that I am nothing and worthy of contempt and confusion I confesse that I am too blame and elevate my selfe above reason when I desire to
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