God being proud-harted immodest distracted Learn of Christ in the garden how to pray lying prostrate on the ground each joint as is were shivering and quaking and all bathd in a bloody sweat If he had taken thee a part with him to pray together to his heavenly father the quires of Angels standing amazd and accompanying that Angel who comforted IESVS himself wouldst thou also sleep then as the three Apostles did or employ thy thoughts about the toyes and trifles of worldly commodities beholding Christ in the interim in such a plight for thy sins and the Angels so absorpt in a reverential amazement Thou that art about to intreat for thy own offences with teares why wilt thou busy thy mind with sportive entertainments how earnestly doth a lawyer plead before a man in a cause which concerns anothers life and death be not thou wrechlesly slothful before God while thou pleadest for thy own crimes Consider also what thou askest what parent if his child ask a stone or Scorpion will not be readier to give him an egg or a loafe of bread why complainest thou of God if demanding temporal things which are a poyson wherewith thou wilt intoxicate thy self and play the mad man against him he grant thee spiritual one must not give a sword to a frantick person to hurt another although he demand his own how much les if it be to hurt him that gives it why dost thou judge God so wicked or foolish that asking what is not thy own thou wouldst have him give thee weapons to hurt both thy self and him learn yet further of Christ how to pray o most amiable and loving truth let it not be as I will but as thou thy will be done in all thou knows best what is expedient Even spiritual guifts also are sometimes differd because we ask them not with a due esteem neither are they sought with like ardour and desire that temporal things are He asketh a little unworthily who asketh great things but coldly and remissly God will have us ask seemly what beseems him to give and by differring the guift he enkindles our desire and disposeth us more worthily Men think to draw God to their frivolous ends with any kind of worship and sooth him up with any piece of service and still him as we do a child with a rattle Therfore it behoves God not to be alwaies too facil but give worthily guifts worthy of his hanâ—â— either preventing all our prayers or if he eâ—â—â—ct them expecting worthy ones For when of his own accord he will not impart his guifts unles intreated he does it not for want of liberality but out of a desire of our profit and a trial and exercise of our affection Therfore it is but good reason that he expect complete prayers and seeming desires and not render his grace contemptible by giving it to him who shewes he contemnes it while he begs it so tepidly for we value not sleightly what we compass with difficulty and procrastinated hopes have a more welcome issue God for the most part changeth our petitions into other favours more hidden from us paying us but in another coyne or else he expects a fitter opportunity for if he should impart thâ—m now perchance we should swell a little with pride and sooner be obnoxious to ingratitude Thou must also pray for others he that petitions for another hath the first share and fore tast of the favour obtained He that will anneale another dips fiâ—st of all his own fingar in the oile pot But be sure thou be alwaies mindful of thy own needines thou must like Lazarus beg an almes of God and his Saints and Angels covetting to fil thy self with the crums of celestial blessings Travaile about walk from dore to dore among the ranks of Angels and quires of Saints begging every where an almes of grace and chiefly of the most B. Virgin Mary who has ample power given her to divide it forth who being as it were the mistress of the family in the house of God she carries at her girdle the keyes of mercy Cry aloud shew thy soares thy nakednes and mendicity Be confounded that any beggar should demand more earnestly relief of his temporal necessities then thou redress of thy spiritual and procure to comprize in thy self the importunity of all beggars together in order to obtaine the least degree of grace One must with more eagarnes seek reliefe of the least spiritual necessity then of all temporal ones together were they all pressing upon him Blush to see so many needy souls that groan with thee under the same calamities with how great humility and plenty of teares they beg redress while thou sits with dry eyes rejoycing amidst such want of spirit insensible of thy pressing necessities Humble thy self as beggars do win affection expect patiently urge importunely be only not impudent in wearying God with prayers that at least thy importunity may force an almes The II. Chapter That we must not intermit our practise of prayer AS much as the soul surpasseth the body so much must we prefer prayer before all other corporal conveniences What a deale of care in our lodging bedding apparrel and daily sustenance is requird to preserve life and our bodily health much more will be requisite for the life and safety of our soul which hath more numerous and heavier enemies then the body The body is annoid with the injuries of the weather and the pinching gripes of hungar but the soul hath even these very enemies of the body for its enemies yea and also its commodities and the body it self the whole world moreover hel with all its hoast sometimes the very favours from heaven and its own vertues if it know not how to use and conserve them in humility Against all these it hath but one only help and refuge and that is prayer How then can it be neglected or intermitted at any time since the body being better fencd against fewer enemies will have almost the whole day spent upon it and that custome never omitted Many because they find themselves firme and constant in their good purposes think they can suffer no prejudice by intermitting the exercise of prayer for some laudable employment let them beware let them beware they be not deceived perchance they will faulter although they find themselves strong and able He that is lusty of body if he should forbear eating to gain more time for labour would without all doubt at length decay and find his body in a weak condition so he that experienceth himself constant in the service of God if he detract time from prayer to spend it in other exteriour employments though pious will at length grow faintish and easily discover his own imbecillity We must never omit prayer because we never omit our corporal refection and if at any time it be omitted we are careful afterward to make amends If one for three or fower daies together should refrain from sleep out
by the same instruments by these Christ ascended into heaven and the members must not think of going another way then by which the head leads them They are not poyson Christ himself sanctified them and tasted them first of all himself yea that a smal parcel of them might only pass to us he drunk up almost the whole chalice of sorrows and afflictions and yet for all that he lives eternally and sits at the right hand of God How canst thou but be confounded whilst seing Christ accursed by all thou seekest so much to be honoured and praisd beholding him prostrate at the feet of Iudas thou preferst thy self before thy betters seing him thirsty and in want of a little water thou covets plenty and delicate fare It is the greatest glory of a servant to follow his masters footsteps To imitate Christ is a busines not only of necessity but dignity and for this respect the main difficulty is removed and a sufficient reward allotted for others that occur If it be a credit to imitate Christ then it wil not be difficult to suffer contempt and the revilements of men for that wil be a high point of honour and there is no contempt where it is a credit to be contemned It wil be also no hard matter to debar ones self of pleasures and superfluous riches to obtaine true glory for worldlings even heathens did more then this when they abstaind even from necessaries for a seeming only apparent glory Let it confound us that some barbarians have bin found so loyal and loving to their soveraign that if he wanted eyes they would put out theirs if he wanted hands they in like manner would cut of theirs and gave this as a pledge of their fidelity and imitation in others why do not we that are calld the faithful imitate the king of glory in things of far les difficulty If Christ had only told us what we were to do though he had not held forth the torch of example we were to have done it how much more when he did it first himself and did it to the end we might do it after him and not only said so in a word but made large encomiums of the happines of afflictions If a Prophet had but intimated it we could pretend no excuse and how much les can we when the very wisdom of Prophets and Gods own mouth hath exaggeratively recommended it and made himself a model of it IESVS never let fal the least idle word and yet he lest so many prayses and magnifying speecheâ— of the happines of poverty and affliction if it behooud us not to suffer the examplary life of IESVS would be to no purpose and his austerity wholly unuseful to us who should be unsensible of his charity who payd such a vast and superabundant sum for our ransome neither should we be taught by so lively an example to love his imitation and detest all sin and sensual pleasures Would God have needlesly thrust his only begotten Son upon such thornes if it imported nothing at all to do what he did that those whom he preelected and predestinated might be made conforme to the image of his Son that he may be the first begotten among many brethren God is not a God of impiety as who could take complacence in being so cruel towards his only beloved child Fierce and savage creatures are most passionately tender over their young ones and how could God who is most meek and ful of mercy be so tyrannically cruel towards his Son if it were not needful for us to suffer The enormity of our sins exacted not such heavy penalties for their redemption one drop I will not say of IESVS blood but of his sweat was superabundant It was therfore our behoof of imitating Christ and suffering it being the road way to heaven that requird such outragious torments and rigour of life God is either cruel and impious or else it is altogether needful for us to be humble afflicted and needy to have a high esteem of divine charity and a meane one of our selves No body knowes the way to heaven who hath not gone it no body ascends up to heaven but he who descended from heaven Christ Iesus who treads the path which he chalkd forth It was a way wholly unknown nor could any give better directions then Iesus who knew it had gone it Iesus did not as some peasants do who with their fingar or speech point out the way to travellers while they themselves sit quietly at home no whit sollicitous whether afterwards they hit or miss for besides that by word he had taught the path that carries to heaven he goes himself before and leads the way that we may be secure from errour Tel me if we were certainly assurd as now we are that there were such a thing as heavenly joyes and that one were to go thither on foot and no more were requird to compass these joyes but only to know the way which he is wholly ignorant of and another good body should instruct him in that who would not buckle himself to this journey though crabbed and ruggy especially if he that shewd us the way would accompany us and go before why then do we not believe Christ and follow him do we feare the wisdome of God being our guide to go astray do we think we can miscarry our B. Saviour going before no certainly Christ shewd us a secure path and traced it out to us so secure that although we die in it the very danger and death breeds security yea if thou didst love Christ thou wouldst not stick to die with him He loves not Christ who doth not imitate him for the vertue of love is assimilation or resemblance O that one could truly say I live now not I but Christ liveth in me carrying the mortification of IESVS about in my body and implanting it in my soul If then thou lovest the Son of Mary wilt become his tabernacle as she was behold with accuratenes and do according to the pattern which is proposd to thee in the mount Calvary and take a view of the whole life of IESVS He chose to live and die in contempt he was derided and set with the wicked accounted not only an idiot but a fool he was beaten as one would not beat his slave he was punishd as if he had been the worst of criminals of his own accord he shund all temporal honour when it was exhibited ther was no miscalling or slanderous nickname that was not appropriated to him they calld him Samaritan idolater possessd person false Prophet seducer belly God devourer drinker of wine blasphemer and transgressour of the law he was thought to be a traitor and conspiratour against his country a friend and abettour of sinners What creature can be namd to which he did not humble himself He humbled himself to the Angels what need was there that an Angel should come to comfort him who was God
perswaded himself that to asswage it thou mightest be induced to sin Am I thirsty and so wert thou also and upon the cross neither was their any body that offerd thee a refreshment I am not in such a condition and easily find those who afford me that courtesy Am I cold thou didst quake and shiver when thou lodgedst in the māger Am I disturbed in my repose thy Disciples did also awake thee when thou slept in the ship Am I injured by any one thou pleading innocent wert sentenced to death Am I affronted or suffer reproach thou wert publickly produced by Pilate in the view of all the people he crying aloud behold the man am I weary thou didst sit at the fountain quite tyrd with travelling about Am I falsely accused and so wert thou also in the house of Caiphas Am I rebuked for my good deeds and thou also for curing on the Sabboth Am I slanderd they murmured against thee that thou cast out divels in the Prince of divels Am I mocked and derided thou wert also taunted and flouted at by those who sayd he hath saved others himself he cannot save Do I receive cross and harsh answers thou receivedst far harsher and over and above a villainous servant gave thee a box on the eare Am I forsaken by my friends thou wert abandoned by thy own Disciples Do I depart from my kindred thou departedst from thy Mother to go to thy Passion Am I sleighted in my advice thy doctrine also both was and is contemned Am I annoyd with temptations thou also wert pesterd with them in the desert Am I sorry for my brothers miscarriage and thou didst grieve for the Apostasy of thy Disciple become a runnegate to truth Am I sorry for my own defects thou beheldst them before me ressentedst them Do I feel want of devotion thou didst cry upon the cross my God why hast thou forsaken me what distress then is there eyther corporal or spiritual of which we find not relief in Christ first of all distressed for us This is it which he saith come to me all yee that labour and are burdend and I will refresh you O most sweet and comfortable promise the very hearing wherof is so recreative If Christs labour doth ease ours how much more will his glory do so if his distresses be so effectual what will his power and riches be but I most meek Lord covet only thy helping hand that I may suffer with thee not that thou mayst comfort me in this life in which my soul desires neither corporall nor spiritual joy but onely to suffer for and with thee The VIII Chapter How purity of body helps the spirit HE that dwels in a fenny unwhole some country what wonder if he be often ill disposed as on the contrary he that breaths in a pure and sweet ayre healthful so a soul in an undefiled body is lusty and vigorous in a foggy and corrupted one drooping and sickly The mind in unspotted and Virgin flesh is as it were in a flowry and fragrant mead Chast bodies are the delights of God what wonder if they be healthful to their soules They let their mind attend wholly to God free from the disturbance of temporal things they exhilarate the conscience in a loathsomnes of all sensual pleasures loving God without let or obstacle O my love o most pure and sincere truth I am endebted to thee o God not only for the half of my hart but for the whole I will not onely purify my mind but also sanctify my body We are members of Christ let not one corrupted and unseemly limb defile and mishape a most beautiful body Who would prize the beauty of a graceful spouse if she had a putrid nose or a face and cheeks which were a receptacle of wormes Christs glorified body is a thousand times more pure and refulgent then the Sun O mortal man thou art a member of the immortal CHRIST consider how much thou oughtest to regard the sanctity of thy body and to thy utmost imitate immortality and incorruption least thou be disagreeing from his purity Thou art made one spirit and one flesh with Christ by the communion of his most H. Body do not defile thy own flesh which by a wonderful kind of real union is become the flesh of Christ Thou wouldst deem it no les then a sacriledge if one should clothe the statua of a Saint in a spotted nasty garment why art not thou at least ashamed to defile that flesh which is a part of the living Christ and add an obscene and polluted member to it thou thy self wouldst not weare a piece even of royal purple if it were steept in dirt and clay and why wilt thou weare thy own flesh staind so pittifully with filthy blemishes and make it a part of Christs body As both our soul and body shal in the next life glorify God in unspeakable purity so must we in this also strive to serve him in cleanenes of both Thou must not only seek beatitude by the sanctity of thy soul but must endeavour also to merit the felicity and resurrection of thy body by the sanctity of thy flesh least siding with thy mortal part at the instigation of some pleasant object thou sentence thy self to a perpetual death But learn now so to behave thy self in flesh as that thou mayst resemble the Angelicall spirits who shall neither marry nor be married Learn now the incorruptibility and being of a single nature and life abstracted from all sense Thy body must emulate the purity of the celestial Thrones in whom God hath seated himself since it is the temple of the H. Ghost chosen to be a vessel of honour We are the good odour of Christ Christ breathes purity every where his attendance is Virginity his delight chastity In almost all the calamities of this world chastity was as it were a lenitive to God a repayrer of its dammages he found an excellent way of repayring the ruines of the Angels chiefly principally out of Virgins chast persons by them chusing a Virgin Mother and Precursour having his Disciples and the peers of his Church the more eminent part of his Saints for the most part Virgins or living in continency or without the use of their wives or separated from them and all of them most chast he mitigated the sad disaster of Adams fal with the hopes of a Virgin that was to bruize the head of the Serpent those whom he saved in the deluged world kept chastity while they were in the Ark Christ solaced himself upon the cross with his B. Mother and beloved Disciple both Virgins How can he chuse but love chastity Virginity both his Parents being Virgins he having all his being derived from Virginity Christ had a Virgin Father according to his divine nature and a Virgin Mother according to his humane He would moreover have the type and substitute of his Father to wit S. Ioseph a
endeavouring conformity in all his proceedings O what a comfort it is to one that loves thee o IESVS to operate not only to please thee but because it is pleasing to thee this is the prerogative of obedience that so the obedient may not be frustrated of any part of the reward which he expects not only from the work but which he finds in it he obtaining his end in the beginning which is to please God and this depends not on any future thing it being anticipated by obeying O most welcome task of obedience why do any complain or seek to be excused from it for this reason that if they obey with humility and promptitude more is enjoind them for superiours are wont to be more forward in commanding them that are most prompt in complying with their commands It is a very fond complaint when we complain of what we ought to wish for A king is thought to do one a favour if he commit any businesses to his trust and the more and weightier they are the greater is the favour esteemd if God proceed after this manner with us why do we complain masters for the most part employ those servants about their commands who are most deare and intimate with them and of whose fidelity they have good proof why do we resent that God treats us as such o God of my hart if thou heldst this favorable manner of proceeding with thy own Son in this world who was obedient even unto the death of the cross shal I dare presume that any favour wil be shewed me of a higher strain o IESVS thou who becamest obedient in all grant that I may never refuse any compliance with obedience Thou atchievedst all by being obedient from thy nativity to thy very death thou wert no les subject to Caesar and Pilate then to it There was also a time when thou wouldst subject thy self to the powers of darknes giving way to the divels and permitting thy self with great obedience to the fury of hel in the executioners and malice of the Iewes and because thou couldst not become Incarnate by it thy Humanity being not as yet existent thy Mother supplied for this she conceiving thee by that rare act of obedience and submission of mind O most welcome task of obedience since it is most certain that nothing is better or more grateful to God Adam with drawing himself from it knew good and evil obedience is most innocent it not only knowes not good and evil but is also ignorant of good and better for all the works of obedience are in the superlative degree that is best in comparison of which the acts of other moral vertues carry no comparison in this that none of them is to be preferred before commands for though one practise all the rest but yet do against obedience they all avail nothing yea he does evil But if he omit them for it he shal have the merit of them all The obedient man knowes no such comparative discourses as it is better to do this then that but that it is best to do what is commanded He that hath obedience hath all other vertues in a compendious abridgment he that is obedient wil be both chast and a lover of poverty Adam after he became refractory felt presently the stings of the flesh and sought a garment to conceal them while he was obedient he was most chast and remained a Virgin being content with his own nakednes he stood in an exact poverty O most welcome obedience to him that is emulous of vertue and makes God the sole object of his love Comfort thy self o my soul who covetest longest so much to see his face which the Angels love to contemplate comfort thy self in the interim and reverence thy superiour whosoever he be as an apparent Christ and visible God God is not worshipped in himself only but in every superiour also Perswade thy self that the divine goodnes in its eternal love and providence hath ordained and decreed thee this Prelate that by him and no other he might communicate his grace and enrol thee one of the predestinate Gods autority resides in him enquire not why he commands this or that Gods wil stands for a reason and so it must be in him who is here his vice-gerent Why demandst thou a reason for putting thy self into the hands of God Tell me what was the reason he created not another man who perchance would have been better when he created thee and gave thee to thy self if thou canst not assigne any why demandest thou one for resigning thy self to God with all the latitude of thy will it is an unspeakable glory and content to the heavenly spirits to be alwaies praysing God but it is far more considerable that it is a property inherent to him inbred then if it proceeded only from their mouth The XIII Chapter How great harme proceeds from daily and light defects VVHy dost thou contemne in thy own soul what men affect so much in their bodies they providing not only for lifes maintenance but also for health and comelines It would be held an unsufferable misery to be alwaies sick and a horrid deformity to have ones body composed of man and beast Thou must not only stand in horrour of great sins but also dread the very desires and thoughts that are culpable yea any imperfection How unseemly an object would it be if a serpents mouth stood upon thy face and yet every smal word whether but lightly detractive or offensive or idle is far more deformed O truth o immense goodnes I beg of thee by the merits of Christ that thou wilt remove this veile from before my eys that I may throughly know how stupendious an evil is involved in the malice of the least default o man how monstrous a creature wouldst thou seeme to the eyes of men if thou shouldst at any time appeare with the head of an oxe or horse in thy humane body and yet it is far worse if before God and his Angels thou conceive in thy soul deified by divine grace disproportioned and idle thoughts of terrene things a brutish longing after thy own commodity nay there is more proportion betwixt a mans body and that of a beast which are in the same degree or order of things then there is betwixt grace and any sin even the smallest Wherfore the deformity of the least venial defect exceeds all monstruosity and corporal mishapednes whatsoever not only what is now extant but also imaginable or possible I beseech thee o zealot of Christ by his most sacred blood pause here a while and ponder what I say with an unbiazd judgment and thou who wouldst not have the least blemish in thy body permit not to thy utmost these monsters in thy soul the spouse of IESVS Employ all the faculties of thy mind set all the inventivenes of thy imagination on work and frame a deformity as ugly as thou canst such a mishapdnes as
first fruits of life to the Authour of life presenting thy self in the morning before him We must prevent the sun to thy benediction and adore thee o Lord at the rising of the same in the midst of our sleep it being as yet night when the pulse of the bel or some inspiration calls us to rise and behold thou our spouse comest and it is requisite to go forth to meet thee To make this encounter fruitfully it conduceth not a little to prepare oyle over night least the lamp of thy love o my soul want fewel to feed its flame and thou like a foolish Virgin be shut out which is too terrible Premeditate what language shal deliver thy first salutes to thy spouse and what affaires thou art to negotiate in time of prayer this being done if thou betake thy self to rest with sorrow thou wilt rise with cheerfulnes if thou hast a loathing of sleep thou wilt covet watching with much alacrity How can a soul enamoured upon God chuse but grieve that it must cease to love him prayse him improve its stock of merits and that all advantages of increasing his glory and its love towards so dear a spouse must be suspended how can it endure to see it self sustained by God loved by him and regaled in this interim with innumerable benefits and not to be able to relove him or as much as be thankful for such high favors Wherfore it is requisite both before and after sleep to make amends for that suspension of love and merits with more ardent affections and celestial desires supplying that loss of life wherin we cannot power out our whole harts upon God and be absorpt in him We must procure by this very cessation of merit and love to merit as much if it were in our power as if we were awake Vsurers even while they sleep increase their mony and thou wilt do the same if conforming thy self to the disposals of heaven with obedience and resignation thou make an ardent oblation of thy self and beare with patience this misery and the incident necessities of mans life He that embraceth patiently a necessary death whether it proceed naturally from some disease or be violently caused by another man he merits by it and so shalt thou if it be harsh and noisome to thee to repose and sleep as it is to those that serve love God fervently if I say thou accept of this necessary burden with equanimity it being wisely so ordained by the author of all wisdome Perchance if thou consider things in themselves and how much more burdensome sleep is then death to a true lover of God thou maist merit by sleeping patiently for his sake as by dying for patience Merit resides amidst great patience and patience is there greatest where greatest aggrievances are born most patiently Among all the burdens of mans life and all the annoyances which besiege it so closely none is greater then that of sleep or more worthily to be repented sin being excepted Other calamities are only tormentours of life sleep for its interim bereaves us of it other calamities are only opposite to the commodities of life sleep for a time impugnes its substance other calamities are in such sort noisome to our temporal life that they exceedingly conduce to eternal by affording matter of merit by raysing our minds towards God and drawing our affections as by an attractive quality sleep in it self during its raign is an enemy both to corporal and eternal life for as much as it causeth a vacancy both from merit and all thought of heavenly things other calamities are most welcome to Gods zealot because in them he doubles his spiritual advantages love is put to the rest God is glorified but sleep hath nothing at all desirable a cessation both of loving and honouring God attending it step by step wherfore sleep is more noisome and for a two fold yea manifold reason more burdensome then death it self to one that is enamoured upon God Death tyrannizeth only over the body sleep over both body and soul sleep on this behalf seems so much worse then death by how much the soul is better then the body nay much more to wit as much as the whole man soul and body is better then the body alone for death only deprives thee of thy body but sleep of thy soul also as wel as of it Death aymes only at the destruction of our body a thing frail and corruptible sleep at the soul also a thing eternal immortal which gives life to the body it being wholly insensible but for it death destroies a man sleep doth as much for a space of time as annihilate him Death is not to be dreaded for it leaves the best part of man untouched to wit his soul which makes him a man by which he loves God and apprehends his mercy and goodnes which is the glory of a man and ought to be his sole content and joy yea it leaves it more refined without impediment that it may honour love God more expeditly sleep overwhelmes and enters the noblest part of man unsouling as it were the soul it self Tel me I pray which wouldst thou resent most to die or to be annihilated if thou give glory to God by dying because such is his B. wil wilt thou not do the same if thou covet upon the same motive to be annihilated therfore if a patient acceptance of death be meritorious so wil also a patient acceptance of sleep if thou relish it as an equal burden If thou merit by embracing with patience the vexatious incumbrances of this life why shalt thou not also merit by sleep if it be the greatest incumbrance of all yea it being the sole and only thing which living and dying we must deem cumbersome for neither in this life nor after death is there any thing sin being set aside more burdensome to one that is feelingly devoted to the service of God What are accounted the burdens which press so heavily upon this life but its sufferings and miseries but one should be so far from esteeming sufferance a burden that it ought to be the scope and but of his desires next after God there is nothing more expetible then to suffer for God exhibiting this as the credentials of our love for by so doing we perfect the knot of true charity being more straitly united to him we dilate the confined raies of his glory and merit to be partakers of the same No body knowes throughly how burdensome sleep is to us besides him who is able to make a true estimate of the immensity of Gods glory the invaluablenes of his love and the least degree of grace in order to all which for this interim there is a dead surcease a suspension of all traffique for new merits After the cloze of this life what is noisome to the just besides purgatory but if thou be then in a condition of suffering it ought not to be resentive at all
thou being therby refined and purified thy spouse trimming thee up in such a dress as may wel beseem his bedchamber If he leave it then wholly in thy power to love God what cause of tergiversatioÌ„ since he leaves arbitrary to thee what thou wishest and desirest where thou hast opportunity to suffer and love there is no just ground of complaint If it were put to thy choise whether thou wouldst sleep or die for half an houres space a soul truly inflamed with the ardours of charity would of it self prefer death that it might not be reduced to a cessation of love yea it would not thirst more after the resurrection of the body then after avoiding all unnecessary excess of sleep though but for a quarter of an hour as much as might be without impairing its corporal health For the mean of discretion is every where to be observed and we must take a necessary repose though against our will that the functions of our mind may be vigorous and masculine fitly disposed for all enterprizes to Gods glory as also for praier least if we indiscreetly deprive our selves of it we be heavy at our devotions too drowzy and languishing and so by little and little quite benumd and what then wil be the issue but that we perform them with little fruit But to be too indulgent to sleep beseems the dead rather then the living and a soul weighing things in themselves that is with an impartial ballance and siezd with the heat of divine love to avoid this inconvenience all acts of love and prayse surceasing for that interim it would perchance rather make choise of a perpetual death of the body because in that case one may love enjoy God which alone sufficeth and is the chief desire of an enamoured soul but being so charmed and stupifyd it cannot although one wil not easily conceive this who doth not experience in himself the avaricious incentives of divine love and its restles longings and motions nor how contemptibly an enflamd hart spurns at all self commodity But we must not measure the ardour of true love and a devoted affection by the ell of our lukewarmnes rather by what we behold in those that fondly doat even to madnes upon a perishable beauty we may guess at the feelings and flames of a pretender to an eternal and never fading one But if thy breast harbour not fuel for such a heat shun at least as much as thou canst the chilnes of tepidity and sleepines If it were intimated to thee that forthwith thou must be annihilated such tydings would fil thee with horrour why then wilt thou so joy in sleep it being all one as if for such a respit thou wert annihilated Apprehend the incommodities of sleep which is an evil manifold death it being very opposite to a 4. fold life for sleep deprives us of the chief life of our body in which it is equivalent to death it self it takes away the life of our soul which is then as if it were not at all in this it surpasseth death sleep is also in some sort injurious to the life of grace and the eternal life by causing such an interruption of merit What then can be more prejudicial to us wherfore one that burnes with the true flame of divine love and is siezd with an ardent desire of praysing so great a good is hugely covetous of the least advantages of time and deems any unnecessary expense in that kind an irreparable loss and consequently he goes to sleep with much regret accepting with patience this necessity imposed by God upon life and making to him an oblation of it taking in good part since his holy wil is such to be deprived for this interim of what he much more covets which is to love prayse God and be restles in his service and as much as in him lyes he covets not to sleep but rather busy himself in the former actuations thinking every hour a day til he return to his wonted employment Thou also must put on this disposition of wil and offer it to God compose thy self like one ready to give up the Ghost saying with Christ into thy hands o Lord I commend my spirit By thus behaving thy self thou shalt after a manner merit by that death and vacancy of sleep so untoothsome and distastful to thy rellish Conceive also ardent desires of that ever during life when without interruption thou shalt enjoy God and bewail the miseries of this life since thou must seek repose and relaxation for thy exhausted spirits in a thing of all others most burdensome to thee and prejudicial to all to wit sleep How can life it self chuse but be noysome its very rest being so restles and its advantages so disadvantageous it is a lamentable thing that life must be repaird at the very charges and expenses of life since the lover of God esteems somtimes a short sleep more dammageable then the loss of a long life When thou art laid to repose endeavour to seal up thy eyes and hart with the ferventest act of love which ever thou didst make in thy whole life and even before thou fallest a sleep desire to rise as soon as may be purposing at thy first waking to unseale thy hart and actuate it in more fervent eâ—aculations then hitherto thou hast done so to compass in that instant a new purchase of grace It wil not a little conduce to this to beg the concurrence of thy Angel Guardian as also to use a spare and frugal diet Strike up this bargain with thy body in the meane while repose take thy penny-worths but be sure to rise as soon as the bell calls thee to work Like as the soul for the good of the body dies as it were by night and is buried so must the body die by day for the good and benefit of the soul while it is awake let the body be dead to this world as when the soul is a sleep it is dead for that respit to heaven that is to meritorious actions and pious thoughts Procure in the meane while that thy body as much as may be supply the elevations and obsecrations of thy soul the which not being as then in a capacity to pray the body must do it by lying modestly in a be seeming posture and for more decency not right upward We compose coarses and embalm them against corruption though they must shortly be the food of wormes and spoile of time so let us compose and dispose our selves in this death of sleep that we may be fit for the chast embracements of Christ Lye with thy armes or fingars a cross such treasures as these must thou coffin up together with thy self till the morning revive thee for treasures were wont to be buried and deposited with the dead Be sure thou never desert the cross but whilst thy mind cannot cling to it thy body must carrying alwayes about with it the mortification of IESVS Christ when
lives and most remote from a soul endowed with reason how much more from a spirit which breaths God A dog will hear his masters call so will not an oak or fig tree the husbandmans nor he that over feeds himself the voyce of God He to keep Adam to his duty enacted the first law of fasting the only one of that most happy state so to recommend more earnestly to us the vertue of abstinence as if it alone were sufficient to preserve innocency and other vertuous endowments putting man in a fit disposition to hear and adhere to God Our Lord would commit the tuition of his beloved child Adam and his Benjamin of creatures to no nurse but fasting into whose faithfull hands he entrusted him that it might be the foster-Father of man and his instructer to obedience But this precept being violated Adam forth with fled from the voice of God caring so little to adhere to him that he would not only not seek nor approach him but sought to avoid God who sought him He renders himself wholly unfit for all who is not abstemious he will resist Gods holy inspirations and withdraw himself from his familiarity being weand as much from the divine breasts as he yealds to these sensual appetites What commerce betwixt God and ones belly how can God affect him who affects only his gut as his God How canst thou endure o divine truth to dwel in him who is such an arrand idolater it was anciently held a high strain of folly for men to kneel by way of worship to those things that were the handy-work of men and how fond a thing is it for thee an intemperate man to set thy hart upon that which thou destroiest and wil destroy thee towitt meat and its rellish How intendest thou to feast with God to lead a celestial kind of life to fly with him upon the wings of the winds to immortality if thou takest complacence in the life of those things which stick to the earth and are rooted and half-buried in it The life of self-pamperers is extremely mortal for such is the life of plants which are in part overwhelmed with earth Those that feed their belly increase their mortality by fatning what is mortal in them becoming more mortal by hindering eternal life by defiling their mind and so contracting their soul as to render it only corporeal Adam by breaking his fast became forthwith mortal thou becomest every day more mortal by stuffing thy self with dead things and feeding greedily on slaughterd creatures and seasond for this end that they may be entombed in thee but so much more happy shalt thou be by how much thou partakest of immortality and thou shalt partake so much the more of it if thou inure thy self to a spare dyet and to feed on unsavory meats All our life in this world is bitter full of labour and afflictions wherfore it is impertinent to go about to repayr maintain it with sweet things Eat only that thou mayst live let thy meat be such as is the rest of thy life Thou livest not to eat but to dye and thou eatest that thou mayst not dye quickly Death assailes him sooner that feeds too plentifully and delicately Food must be the medicine of life not its poyson and destruction Let thy own hunger and the gall and vinegar of Christ be all thy sauce and seasoning who for that end drunk it upon the cross because whosoever combats against sin must not seek after savory meats and the adjoyning of hyssop with a spunge signifyes the vertue of cleansing that we might have a model how to purge our soules By frugality and untoothsome meat the divine character which is engraven in us becomes more resplendent and the holy purity of our mind is refind that it may be united to God made more capable of divine impressions for if fasting drive out the stubbornest dive is from anothers body much more forcibly wil it attract God so facil and benign into our own If such be the vertue of fasting that by it thou canst purify others much more wil it sanctify thy self He breaths somewhat divine who breaths abstinence and hunger the body it self is in a certain manner elevated by the force of a disengagd spirit Iron is ponderous but it becomes light by the spirit and vertue of the loadstone and if thou also fasten and hang thy self upon God he wil sublimate thy body by the vigour of thy spirit rendring it intellectual and incorporeal The composition also of thy body is rarefyed by abstinence in such sort that divine irradiations penetrate more easily into the soul and she more dextrously steers the other squard more fitly to it by a proportionable demolishment as being disbarked of that fat rind that environd it for a great weight is no wayes weildy or commodiously mannageable Lastly abstinence containes so great a good that there is nothing to which it is not extreme beneficial Other vertues adorne the soul but abstinence is salutiferous both to body and soul Both Saints Philosophers by embracing it protracted their life to a faire old age We men designd to be immortal had contented our selves in that most happy state of innocency to feed only upon hearbs the fruits of the earth now temperance also restores to man that golden age Spare diet conduceth to the health of the body it is a natural restaurative an universal medecine fit to be applyed to al kinds of diseases The skilfullest Physitians prescribe it for the first recipe in all maladies for oppletion is the metropolis or head-city of diseases and deaths chief sergeant All the untimely deaths of yong people are in a manner caused by excess in diet But if frugality be effectual against all the indispositions of the body it wil also give redress to those of the soul Hunger makes the proud to stoop the covetous to disburse the lazy slouthful it forceth to work it renders the luxurious chast the angry man calmely patient If then frugality even when it is forced makes head against all vices if when it is no vertue it can engender vertues what remaines when it is a true and sincere one but that must needs associate God to a soul and make him its constant sejourner God took complacence in conversing with Moyses and Elias when they were both in a long fast But after the same manner that it expels puts the divels to flight saturity bereaves us of God Vnles thou resolve to banish this vice and establish in thy soul the vertue of temperance thou maist wel dispaire of the rest It wil be the same as if one being desirous to beat away a troublesome dog should in steed of a stone throw at him a crust of bread A domestique enemy must first be vanquishd ere we can fal abord with a foraign The XIII Chapter That one must take account of his proceedings by a frequent examen of himself MEN do seldome cast a
whosoever loves any thing as good to himself aymes alwayes at that which is more perfect and by good consequence he that loves life must not love a temporal but eternal life who loves good things must not love earthly but heavenly goods wherfore our very affection to things compels us to disaffect all worldly things Ther 's no body that loves any good thing but he wisheth it perpetual though the contrary be absurd yet we alwaies do it for through our love to life and goods we suffer great detriment both of life and goods Tel me o thou wretched of the world who art so forgetful of eternal life whether dost thou despise these transitory things or love them If thou dispisest them it must be for this reason because thou seekst after better if thou lovest them how much are greater things more worthy of love How ever the case stands it is convinced that we ought to love eternal things which will accrue to us so much more copiously by how much the more we are impoverishd disesteemd afflicted for God Notwithstanding all this the sufferings of this life are in no degree proportionable to the future glory for what is here but light and momentary works in us an eternal poize of the same Our provision for eternity may be prepard with much facility and ought to be kept with all carefulnes Each one furnisheth most plentifully the place he intends for his longest abode and where his residence is to be but for a short time that he regards but sleightly and provides it but superficially An eternity expects us in the other life we must lay up store of merits for it least we make our provisions preposterously bestowing great care on a short abode and little on a long But we ought to have transitory things in hatred not only in regard of the eternal life but even in respect of this temporal they disquiet and vex us with a thousand cares while we are procuring them and with a thousand feares and frights least we fal short of them we brook any loss but impatiently which happening so frequently as they do we are tossd in a continual sea of griefe anger and endles vexations He alone who goes contrary to the world lives without contrariety and in a holy repose How then do these things deserve the name of goods which are so noysome and tormenting to us rather the quite opposite ate to be stiled such which far sooner render us such by putting us in mind of our present condition by making us think upon God and have recourse to him by occasioning our greater merit and assimilating us to the only begotten Son of God The lover of men IESVS did most truly tearm those not only good but also beatifying Yea the choysest of the heathen Philosophers held not those things which the world so much adores good but their contrary Some of them hated and rejected temporal riches that at least in this life void of care and fear and perplexity of mind they might enjoy a temporal felicity It redounds to our great shame that heathens should do so who wanted the example of the Son of God who were out of hopes of other goods and this when the world was in its youth and verdure and abounded more with such allurements though false and counterfeyt But we have the glory of imitating IESVS and the incentive of a heavenly reward the world moreover is now grown worse and more deformed and wants not only solid goods but also fading Now it scarse hath where with all to bait a deceitful book its false varnish is washd of in so much that it cannot deceive us unles we deceive our selves The XII Chapter Of the excellency of one that is in the state of grace VVHy seekst thou any thing of the world if thou be above the world why lovest thou any earthly thing since thou art beloved of God How can he stick in the mud of nature who is elevated to the state of grace O good as little understood as much neglected God hath bestowd large and pretious promises upon us to make us sharers of his divine nature Why seeks he any thing besides God who hath found the grace of God which raiseth him above all nature yea even that of the highest Thrones Cherubins and Seraphins if therrs be considerd in it self though so far surpassing all other created substance by which we have God for our Father for our friend and unseparable Achates It 's accounted a matter of high concernment among men to have precedency of place or dignity before others and what wil it then be to have a preeminence above all the degrees of nature Although the world were never so estimable the things in it beyond our valuation yet they ought to be contemnd by one in the state of grace The divel is intolerably proud yet he regards not the opinions of men concerning him nor deems himself one iot the worse for being revild by them he seeks not popular applause he sleights material things he loaths what we relish so savourly he scofs at our affaires and all this for no other reason but because he is of a more sublime nature why then is man who is raisd to a participation of Gods nature who is rankd in the highest class of creatures so sollicitous about these base trifles certainly if he understood throughly the dignity that is conferd upon him by being rightly confessd and put in the state of grace nothing else would be requisite to make him contemne and deride these fopperies of creatures nor were any great store of vertue needful to move him to this but he would do it even by his vicious nature unles we should hold it impossible that grace could be the authour of a misdeed The wicked spirits without any vertue at all have a most mean conceit of these sublunary things and why but because they are of a Superiour nature and rank above them What then ought man to do with vertue who is elevated above all nature If a great king in his robes of state should find a spade or sickle lying in the way he would scorn to stoop to take it up as being of a more eminent condition then a peasant and why doth man when he hath once possessd his soul of Gods grace stoop and debase himself to earthly things since his dignity overtops the heavens O how great is the excellency of grace It lies conceald many times under a course and contemptible garment in a weak body feeble and sometimes loathsome to the eye Consider how much the noblest nature of a Seraphin surpasseth the basest of a silly worme yet ther is not the meanest slave and ugliest Lepar if he be in the state of grace but doth much more exceed the nature of a higher Angel If God should create a select nature in which all under-natures vegetative sensitive rational Angelical were comprehended in so much that these sublime intelligences of
his own Son so pretious to him The XIII Chapter How Penances and Corporal afflictions help us THorns conserve plants in a garden austerities grace in a just man A fresh vigour of mind flourisheth many times in a tottering and witherd body That Physitians may cure the body they more and more afflict it by bitter potions by abstinence by breathing a veine by searing it and other wayes yet more penal if it be exacted of thee to afflict it in some sort for the good of thy soul no great matter is demanded He that is ill at ease amidst his gripes and paines casts up what annoyd him so the peccant humours of our soul are not purgd by living pleasantly since the maladies of our bodies are not curd without annoiance A flint being beaten yealds flashes of light and the flesh by chastisements illuminates the mind That soul shewes it self a very beast which treats not its body like a beast Even as afflictions and crosses sent by God make men relent think upon him indoctrinate them enkindle fervour increase familiarity with God and raise their harts so voluntary austerities have like effect they make man have a more frequent recourse to God and being voyd of sensible gust they dispose him better for divine illustrations The curbing of nature is a fit disposition for increase of grace this is the ayme and endeavour of grace to divorce us from temporal corporeal and visible things and a penitential life finds this half done to its hand supposing it be accompanyd with divine grace without which nothing is beneficial to us nothing profitable The depth of our humiliation together with bodily austerity is the throne and kingdom of grace and a step to glory and the crucifying of our flesh the exalting of the spirit Thou armest thy self with voluntary afflictions against necessary ones learning thus in the school of patience how thou art to embrace those which are sent thee from God By these skirmishes thou art taught to overcome thy self and consequently disable thy greatest antagonist by whom the rest assaile thee thou also findest a more speedy redress at the hands of God in thy addresses to him Although Christ crucifyd be a sufficient warrant for our penitential austerities yet we might specify many more and principally our innumerable defaults and penalties due for them that we may make amends for what is past and lessen future misdemeanours Thy soul must be the executioner of thy flesh for this end through the great mercy of God it is repriev'd and rescued from the paines of hel fire Sometimes it happens that of two criminals sentencd to death the one partner is quitted upon this condition that he execute the sentence of death upon his companion becoming his hangman for want of another Our soul and body are joynt sharers in sin let the soul be the executioner of divine justice over the body and punish it in a due manner she when she first sinned being repriev'd from eternal damnation Suffer nothing to pass unpunished make thy self formidable to thy self as one that can be cruel against thy self a most impartial and severe chastizer of all the delinquencies and soothings of the flesh all must undergoe their due penalty There 's no citty wel governd unles its penal lawes be in force and vigour nor can that conscience be wel orderd where so many depraved affections are on foot without its courts and sword of justice The punishment thou inflictest upon thy self must be corresponding to thy fault beware God call thee not to an account for contemning corrupting justice Take pennyworths of thy self both because thou pleadest guilty hast playd the naughty judge in acquitting thy self so often by being indulgent to thy self Iustice is exercisd in cityes rather to terrify others by such an example from offending then to lessen the guilt and punishment of him that is nocent but thou reapest more ample fruit by chastizing thy self thou shalt not onely henceforth deter others from offending but thy self that thou mayst not commit new ones and diminish the punishment due for the committed Thy severity is not a piece of justice but indulgence for mans revenge works Gods pardon Yet in all thy proceedings be mindful how prayse worthy is obedience and how profitable discretion least thou practise austerity unadvisedly with decrease of thy own profit and les increase of Gods honour and service for the divel is ready to catch at all turnes Nevertheles be careful above all and at all times rather to chastize thy will then thy body but as far as a prudent circumspection divested of self love and the advice of thy superiour with regard to each ones age condition strength inclination employment and necessity shal permit such austerities thou must without mercy and self-flattery not be sparing in inflicting them O mercyful truth how can I flatter and pamper my self if I call to mind the hardship and torments which my most innocent IESVS sufferd for my sins and the paines that are indured by the soules in Purgatory It would be accounted a huge priviledge if God should permit a soule in those scorching flames to redeem its sufferings as we now may by undergoing voluntary afflictions Let us now make use of this his indulgence If a creditour should remit to one a debt of a hundred talents upon this condition if within a prefixt time he payd him only one would he think you refuse so gainful a bargain What a madnes is it in us to chuse rather to pay a hundred in the other life then one in this But what need of remission of these terrifical paines the gracefulnes and beauty which accrues to our flesh in the life to come is a sufficient incentive Remember how glorious and seemly our bodies will be in the future resurrection which shal share of comelines and splendour according to the rate and proportion of their now-present sufferances The robes which are to vest them in eternity are woven by the home spun temporal afflictions of this life Some not to appear deformed to the eyes of men have sufferd their limbs and bones to be cut and rackd half the tearm of their short life eternal beauty is purchasd at a far easier rate it is not requird that we cut them but only that we do not pamper them a litle vex annoy them Our H. Patriarch S. Ignatius understood this excellently wel who being not as yet converted to almighty God to avoid deformity commanded a bone to be cut out enduring the pain without a tear without a sigh without the least sign of grief or torture but after his conversion he judgd it an act far more heroical upon consideration of a future comelines that is to invest us in the resurrection to undergoe austerities to fast for whole weeks together to disciplin himself thrice a day to make prolix genuflexions lying on the bare ground wearing a rough hair-shirt clad in sackcloth going barefoot treating his
not worthy o most sweetnaturd God who being ineffable art more affable then any I am not worthy to be the object of thy eyes How wouldst thou have me appear in thy presence and speak to thee o humble majesty who disdainest not the speeches and prayers of men yea desirest exhortest us to pray without intermission and such is mans clownishnes that he loaths thee and thy conversation and makes no other esteem of thee the lover of souls then one would do of a deadly enemy What is the first affront one puts upon his enemy but to deny him speech and we o sweetest truth will not converse with thee because we love not truth for what else would men do if thou hated them but what they now do when thou most tenderly lovest them as one enemy asks not advice of another concerning his affaires and dangers though he be held never so wise so men in the midst of perils and non-plus of redress will not seek to be advisd by thee giving no eare to thy oracles and instructions with which thou dost furnish us in time of prayer Passionate men chuse rather to perish then beg reliefe for their want of their mortal enemy that they may not be forcd to speak to him and such an obstinate malepertnes do they use towards thee o affable ineffability they are often pressd with want they are afflicted they perish because they demand not redress of thee nor will speak to thee what greater signe of enmity then that two living in the same house will not speak to one another man lies if he say he loves God and does not speak to him residing in him Dumb freindship is not distinguishd from hatred God from all eternity o ungrateful spirit cast his thoughts upon thee and thine it is but good reason that we in this short tearm of life consider his divine beauty and approach him who would be so neer to us that he united himself to our nature and lodgeth so often in our breast and that he might not depart from us when he ascended to his father he invented that artificial master piece of his divine Sacrament that he might stil remain with us But our impudence and rechlesnes found also out a way that when we come to God by prayer even then we leave him become absent by letting our thoughts wander abroad and busy themselves with distractions we procure to be estrangd from him that when he comes to us in his most amiable Sacrament we fly to the vain thoughts of other affaires and having entertaind such a guest we quit the room and appear no more But if o man thou carry not this reverential respect to God have at least commiseration upon thy self let thy own necessity perswade thee to a love of prayer if love of God force it not Thou art nothing but ignorance nothing but indigency in prayer alone wilt thou both grow rich and wise in prayer God will open thy eyes to the discovery of wisdome and thy hands to receive reliefe for thy needines Our prayers are as pleasing to God as it is acceptable to him to give that which is most pleasing of all the fruits of a beneficial nature God did not create the world out of avarice that he might have more then he had but out of munificence that he might have to whom to give for this reason he created all things that he might have both to whome and what to give But because we have made our selves unworthy of his liberality the end for which the universe was created fayling our prayers are grateful to God because they make satisfaction for our unworthines by sin by giving occasion to him of doing for their sakes that for which he made all things which is to be beneficent in so much that it seems in a manner to be the same to pray God and restore the universe God cannot hold nor contain himself from being liberal he is perpetually coveting to be beneficial and therfore he exhorts us to pray without intermission because he desires to be giving without intermission Why do we frustrate his desire and our own good beg importunely for this importune impudency in begging is grateful to him God many times differs to grant our demands although he be desirous to give either because we ask after an unworthy manner or not sorrowful for our sins or too confident of our own merits or not with due reverence or begging temporal things too earnestly and spiritual too remisly and for the most part we demand such things and after such a fashion that the very granting our request is sometimes deservedly its punishment Were it a decent manner of asking any thing of a parent if the murderer of his only Son carrying in his hands as yet imbrued with blood the sword wherewith he murderd him should beg of the father the Sons inheritance what an unparalleld impudence were this he deservd to have taken from him what waâ— granted before not to receive new courtesies Men frequently proceed thus either not detesting their faults or remaining impenitent they were our sins that murderd Christ We must go to pray pure and undefiled and not presuming upon our own merits but acknowledging our unworthines dress our selves in the garments of our brother IESVS according to the craft of Iacob that so we may receive a blessing from God Let us cloath our selves with the merits of IESVS which are ours for he lent us them not that they make us formally just and grateful to God but because they are the cause of our sanctification Being so apparreld let us appear in prayer using the mediation of his only-begotten begging of God what he cannot deny us then thou begst not for thy self but for Christ and the favour is done to him If thou make account thou givest to Christ what a beggar asketh in the name of Christ the same is done by the heavenly father If thou be moved when it is demanded for Christs sake how much more readily will God be moved to give an almes is he less merciful then thou art miserable Nevertheles many times thou art not effectual with the father although thou alledge the merits of his Son because the merits themselves and sufferings of Christ are not effectual with thee They say if an Oratour would perswade his auditory he must first of all perswade himself Thou canst not complain of God if he grant thee not those graces which thou demandest by the Passion of his Son since thou wilt not quit thy faults and daily defects for the same how canst thou expect to incline the will of the father to thee for the blood of his Son if for the same thou wilt not yet quit thy own will If thou ask after a les decent manner how canst thou hope to gain thy suit by a petition that 's worthy of punishment men expect to be petitiond not only civilly but submissively and thou presumest to be essicacious with
appearance of thy glory I reserve my self for it and wil refrain from these grosser meats of the earth Vpon hopes to feed more savourly at a wel furnishd table the guest is content to protract his fast it is but meet that upon hopes of the divine supper we at least keep abstinence Remember that Christ hath made thee equal with the Angels and wil it not then be a shame to do like a beast he that cannot wholly wipe off an infamy lessens and dissembles it as much as he can let it confound us to renew daily the brand we received by gluttony in our first fall from a state of happines and that with so much gust and savour If we had heaven eyther in esteem or hunger we should loath earth and earthly things where when we are to eat for as much as concerns gust we must carry our selves as if there were none at all God himself invites thee a guest to the supper of eternal glory in the interim sitting down to table let Christ be thy fellow-guest and thou wilt be abstemious if thou suppose thou art to divide with him What soever thou subtractest from thy necessary sustenance offer it to IESVS The Pharisees and Publicans invited IESVS thou being a Christian must not think much to do the same He that invites another labours not so much to please his own palat as his guests for whom he carves the best piece so when thou sittest down at table strive not to content thy own rellish but study how to pleasure Christ and the only way to please his gust is to take no gust at all Consider him where he refreshed those 3. dayes when his Mother lost him in the Temple prepare a banquet for him together with Saint Mathew Contemplate Christ his disciples when through want of necessaries they pulled cares of corne call him making him share of thy provisions prepare him a feast together with Zaccheus Behold him fasting 40. dayes for thy sake and if thou wilt not minister to him with the Angels invite him with Simon and he will be as much refreshed with thy abstinence as if a table were furnished for him by the Angels He begd a draught of water of the Samaritan do thou give him of thy cup. I thirst cryed he from the cross let him tast of thy Chalice O that any one would give me gall vinegar I would exchange cups with Christ relieving his thirst with my drink how could I chuse but relieve thee o Lord in such extreme necessity now I am able to do it and undoubtedly thou wilt rellish my good will and desire of abstinence more savourly then if I offerd thee a most delicious draught How unnatural were he that would not relieve thee now I may do it if I drink not more then is necessary Why shal I not refresh thy thirst behold o soul thy IESVS desirous to eat his Pasch with us accompany the Apostles that thou maist partake of so desired a table Carry thy self there with modesty and humility seek the lowest place but chuse not for all that the place of Iudas Thou art not worthy to sit at such a table place thy self at the feet of thy companion the betraier the most humble IESVS will even there also find thee out Contemplate how he fed so many yeares with his most H Mother and S. Ioseph she perchance sometimes eat very sparingly and defrauded her own mouth of many bits purposely to give them to her most loving Son their poverty not sufficing for both deprive thy self of some parcel give it as an almest to the Virgin wherewith to feed her dearest child Remember how this Mother of love gave suck to her Infant IESVS how the Son of God even then would fast for thy sake abstain sometimes from these sweet breasts do thou also for his sake refrain at least from some particle and offer it to Christ with a most ardent charity with such to wit as she nursed him imitate to thy utmost her love In this manner thou shalt stifle with pious meditations and forestail thy appetite by an affection to things divine One desire wil drive out another and one rellish drown another Perchance gluttony wil be no les extirpated and thy mind by ruminating what is read at table and such pious employments more purged then by fasting it self If the motive of doing a thing acceptable to Christ do not urge thee the dignity of abstinence the profit which redounds from it ought in all reason to prevail Nothing is more contrary to the spirit then an unmortified appetite Eat to refresh thy body not to overcharge it Many when they eat do rather oppress then nourish their bodies making that which ought to be the refection of life its oppression Is it not very absurd to load and stuff ones belly as one would do an asses pack since our flesh is elevated above the Cherubins if the kingdome of God and tabernacle of the H. Ghost be within us why are we so base-minded as to make our stomacks the charnel-house or Sepulcher of dead beasts he that ought to be the Temple of the living God cald to a divine life why doth he debase himself to the meanest of all lives to wit ' a dead life and the very dregs of all life Plants having only a nutritive life are void of all sense We loose so much of our mind as we bestow of it upon meat what more unworthy then the loss of an Angelical life mind if thou feedst too greedily sensually thou hast reason to fear least thou degenerate not so much into a beast as into a tree or a stock Adam being overcome with gluttony clad himself with leaves like a tree as if he meant to become one carrying its shape in his flight from God Gluttony and nutrition is not only a life proper to unreasonable creatures but to the very insensible plants nutrition being only peculiar to them Therfore a full belly obstructs all sense it evacuates the mind it disposeth one to insensibility by hindring the use of reason which after dinner is dull and sluggish it induceth sleep in which a man differs nothing at all from an elme or plain tree save only that this at set times affords the benefit of a shade but the life of gourmandizers is the life of sleepers and the life of sleepers the life of a gourd which is allwaies in a lying posture Hence it followes that he who is les abstemious is les obsequious to reason as being more insensible the sole life of trees is uncapable of command Nutrition it self is not in the power of a creature When we check our desires or curbe savage beasts they become tame and pliable to their keepers but plants which regard nothing as I may say but their belly that is to feed themselves they harken to no body nor regard reason This kind of life is the scum and refuse of all
not love thee o Lord who gavest us our whole creation are grateful towards robbers who pillage us but in part yea even towards dogs for guarding what is ours we love him that supplies us in our want and we melt not into love of thee who gavest as both essence and life when we were no better then nothing What greater want or penury then to have nothing yea to be nothing if God relieved us then by giving us a life and being why are we not mindful of such an almes since we are grateful to him who affords us but a mean support of life can it be judgd a more signal mercy to give wherewith to live then to give life it self benefits are esteemd much greater for coming in the nick of time when our indigency was most pressing and when what is given comes voluntarily and without paying so much as a begging for it What greater penury then to have nothing which is the greatest of all God then did us a great good turn worthy of the greatest love in relieving so urgent a necessity it is an inestimable benefit that he gave it so freely of his own accord when nothing of ours preceded which could exact it The more pressing ones want is although what is given be but a trifle it is more highly valued then when more is given in a less exigence thou o Lord when we were extremely penurious in our nothing didst not bestow a little upon us but all whatsoever we are Let us sum up all the benefits conferd upon men because it were too prolix to recouÌ„t all let us consider that which in the judgment of all nations is held the greatest and beyond all recompense and let us compare it with the least divine benefit of our creation Nature teacheth and preacheth that we can render no equality of recompense to our Parents and they what have they given us a stenchy body subject to sin and diseases and all the miseries of this life insomuch that they are in a certain manner more benevolent towards loathsome wormes then towards their children for they produced them undefiled with any fault nor lyable to the divine wrath but they bring forth their children accursed wearing the badg of sin worthy of death and imprisonment How o Lord can we be unmindful of thee and impudent in our carriage towards thee since thou gavest us all our being a body at that instant sitly accommodated unblemishd qualifyd with diversity of endowments a soul of a most excellent nature pure immortal spiritual the benefit we receive from our parents cost them but little for they gave us only of their superfluities not a whole body but a smal parcel of most loathsome matter and corruption thou o Lord gavest us all our selves our whol body our whol soul pure and unspotted which benefit cost thee no less then the expense of thy omnipotency Moreover what we have from our Parents they gave it not but thou by their meanes they of themselves gave us only a lyablenes to sin and an ill o men of future miseries What they afforded us was â—ot out of pure love to us but to their own â—mpure pleasure thou o Lord out of an excess of charity to us createdst us Perâ—hance our parents begot us against their wil they having many times a positive desire to the contrary it was not an effect of their affection that they begot us and not some other that being neither in their power nor choyse thy love o Lord created me and no other it was thy election thou o Lord beholding an endles multitude of men which thou couldst have created who would have servd thee much better then I pickt me out a poor miscreant for no merits of my own neither was thy love impeded by foreseing that I would prove more dissoyal then any of the rest and the greatest and wretchedest of sinners more ungrateful then Lucifer the first begotten of sin and Iudas the betrayer of thy Son and Anti-christ his opposite Behold o Lord for one only of thy benefits I stand not only endebted and owing my self to thee but am upon many scores end ebted how then shal I be able to acquit my self of others I owe my self wholly to thee because thou gavest me wholly to my self I owe my self wholly because thou disbursedst thy omnipotency upon me I owe my self wholly because thou gavest me my self not repiningly I owe my self wholly because thou didst it lovingly I owe my self wholly because thou didst it calling me by design out of millions I owe my self wholly because thou didst it foreseing that I would surpass all in ingratitude O Lord since I stand endebted my whole self under so many titles for one sole benefit grant that once at least I may pay my share for thy endles ones grant that I may make by way of discharge an oblation to thee of my whole hart and since thou conferredst not once only this one benefit so variously manifold but art still continuing and daily enlarging it by a perpetuated conservation this debt of my whole self is daily doubled to an infinitude be then endlesly taking my hart not for the good thy benefit works in me but for the good it effects in thee by making thee beneficial to me as also for the fruit I reap from it If therfore this least of thy favours be so great that I owe no les then my whole self upon so many several claymes for it what shal I do for my redemption that excelling my creation as much as God excelleth man in my creation thou gavest me to my self in my redemption thou gavest thee and restoredst me The II. Chapter That Gods benefits are without number BLess yet more and more o my soul our Lord and be not unmindful of his retributions whether towards his enemyes or towards his friends towards his Angels or the beasts of the field whether towards the blessed in remunerating them or the divels in tormenting them all his retributions are so many thy peculiar favours O God how am I engulphd in an Ocean of thy beneficence whatsoever thou dost is a benefit yea and my peculiar benefit The actuations and productions of light are light a light that is exposd for one mans direction illuminates all that stand about him so dost thou o light of truth o nature of goodnes and therfore because thou art beneficial thou canst do nothing which is not beneficial and it is necessarily consequent that the benefit thou bestowest upon one is not only proficuous to him but all Each best guift and perfect blessing is descending from above from the Father of lights because thou diffusest them like unto the diffusions of light thou communicating thy self to all and for all without any decrease or impoverishment A light remaining still intyre divides its beames to all and another without any prejudice to it may borrow some from its flame Whatsoever the sun darts forth is light all may see
of the divine honour thou oughtst in all reason to be more immeasurably cruel against thy self then against any enemy or the whol camp of hel although in effect and in the exteriour maceration of thy body a discreet mean is to be held according to the direction of thy superiours and ghostly Father and the prescript of right reason to the end that in this also thou maist seek Gods greater glory for whose sake it is expedient not to be immoderate in chastizing thy self as for the same reason and our own salvation we are forced to pardon our other enemies and afford them a place in the list of our charity for that which God exacts chiefly of us and wherein we ought to take revenge of our selves is the death of our will not of our body And according to this I say it is most evident that thou hast more reason to be displeased with thy self then all thy enemies and ill-wishers whatsoever Suppose a man who had many capital foes who sought his life were delivered into a strong and safe castle there to be kept and defended by his intimate friend one assured to him by all the tyes of alliance and friendship who alone were both esteemd and should be most faithful to him and that there were no sanctuary elswhere for that man nor place of refuge and that it were in his power to let no enemy hurt him nor wrong the least haire of his head unles that friend did introduce him thither and deliver to him the keyes of the castle giving his consent by subscribing letters with his own hand If he who ought to be both faithful and friendly should prove so perfidious as to unlock â—he gate to all his persecutours and give â—hem entrance with intent to let them abuse him wrong him and exercise the utmost of their cruelty upon him and he himself moreover who were to shield him should be more raging and malicious then the rest should impede any benevolence that were intended him permitting nothing good nor conducing to his health to come to his hands which he intoxicated not first with poyson or some other noxious ingredient against whom then ought this miserable man to conceive a spleen against some one of his enemyes or that friend and allye who proves so treacherous whose malice alone is equivalent to all the rest it being certain that without him all their hatred would have availed nothing at all What an incredible brand of perfidiousnes cruelty in humanity would fall upon that man he would incur the detestation of all as being much more blame worthy then all O most beneficent truth thou hast committed my safety only to my own trust as who would be trustyest to my self but I prove most dangerous above all others divels men hell the world all of them are my sworn enemyes but they all remain disarmd if I my self do not arme them they all wil be innocent if I to my self be not nocent All the prejudice I can receive is within the reach of my own power neyther can any body really hurt me but by my permission unles my wil be such unles I betray my self I alone am the Architect of all the injuries which befal me from others though I impute them falsely to others I stop the influences of Gods beneficence I hinder the effects of his guifts I infect his graces and corrupt his vertues abusing both the one and the other how then shal I flatter my self who am so burdensome to my self how shal I cherish and sooth my self who am such a mortal enemy to my self All the hatred I can vent is not equivalent to my own injuriousnes How often have I cheated my self how many faults have I contracted I have defrauded my self of heaven I have neglected the blessings of Gods grace and not to number up all my spiritual losses which are without number what pensivenes of hart what affliction of mind what disasters in my goods what losses in my temporals how many bodily diseases contempts revilements derisions have I brought upon my self by the disordinatenes of my passions by my little circumspection and following the gust of my appetite If just occasion being given any one contristate me I am highly offended and why am I not so with my self since upon alloccasions I am injurious to my self If thou o lying man hadst but once catchd one in a lye thou wouldst never trust him afterwards and having so often belyed and cozend thy self thou yet trusts thy self and art not at all suspicious of thy proceedings But why do I recount my own injuries it is a sufficient motive to make me abhor and prosecute with a pious hatred whatsoever is mine for that all have proved as so many obstacles to retard my endeavours in loving God O most holy faithful truth I ought to loath and hate my self for being so wicked and disloyal to my self how much more for being wicked and perfidious to thee for my own sake it behoovd me to detest my self how much more o Lord for thine because I loved not my self orderly I should in reason have hated my self how much more because I loved thee not at all who alone should be loved in all I loved not thee because I knew not how to love my self yea I loved not my self because I loved not what in reality I was but some what else les considerable I loved not my soul which is my chief and noblest portion but only my body as if I were nothing but it which is absurdly false for I have also a soul for whose ransome the Son of God by way of exchange gave his To love a part of my self I loved not my whole self and what is more to be lamented I loved not that which to me is all in all God my Saviour If thou be carried with a zeal towards God o perfidious man thou canst not but be fraught with hatred towards thy self I permit that so far as thou hast prejudiced or wrongd thy self thou be indulgent to thy self there remaines yet sufficient cause of selfrevenge for not loving God and transgressing his commands Thou art not a litle moved when thou hearest the perversenes of Caiphas and the treachery of Iudas and the very naming them puts thee into chollar why then wilt thou be partial and soft-natured to thy self tel me o proud spirit if thou hast but one dram of true humility that is of truth dost thou not hold thy self the worst of all sinners nay this is nothing extraordinary since S. Paul framed no better conceit of himself Wherfore thou must deem thy self the perversest of creatures when thou hast done so thou proudly rankest thy self above thy degree Nevertheles I demand of thee if thou holdst thy self such then by consequence worse then Iudas or Caiphas or any other but if thou judgest so in very deed proceed consequently lest thou be taxed and derided by the Angels and either out of