you cease to be all that you are Have a great desire to loose your self and to go out of your self and that your being be annihilated and consummated in that of Iesus who is in you This is the point whereto you must arrive if you will that God should possess you Thirdy Desire and require that Iesus Christ destroy in you all that is contrary to God that he establish in you the Kingdom of God that he take from you the dominion which self-love the vanity of your nature and your inclination usurp over you and the creatures Fourthly Resign your self to the will of Iesus Christ who by this adorable sacrament of Love will receive you into himself and place you in his life and his being Abandon then your self to the desire that he hath to possess you a desire as great and perfect as the Love wherewith he gives himself to you is infinite Pray him to destroy in this present life the being that you use and abuse that by the power of his spirit and love and by the vertue of this ineffable sacrament he may make you what he is that is to say Love Life and Truth Behold what God requires of you if we regard intentively the essence and the excellency of this mysterie if by the spirit of Faith we weigh the effects it produces in us it will be easie to acknowledge them and soon shall we be constrained to confess that this sacrament of Love doth appropriate us wholly to God draws us from our selves and the world and separates us from the commerce of creatures that we may be knit in heart and spirit to Iesus Christ despising all things for his love and glory so shall be verified the word of the Son of God to his Father in the excess of his Love speaking to him not onely of his Apostles but of all good Christians They are not of the world even as I am not of the world This is the spirit of Christianity the excellency of this divine estate That we may the better remember this you shall see in a little Picture First the grace and spirit of Christianity consecrates us to God and imprints in us a character of the power of Iesus Christ to whose Empire we must be subject for ever and must undergo to all eternity both in heaven and earth the state of service and subjection to the spirit grace and conduct of Iesus Secondly The grace of Christianity makes us the children of God by mercy and gives us right of inheritance to the greatness and true glory of Iesus Christ. By this grace we have no more part in the world because it is the heritage of the true children of Adam but we have right to the Possession of God who is himself the heritage of his children Thirdly This grace draws our spirits our hearts and our affections from our selves and all creatures to unite us to God it gives us right to enter into familiarity and alliance with the Son of God who making himself man by the Incarnation would be amongst us to the end that we might be with him He enters into society with men invests himself with our miseries infirmities to communicate to us his life his spirit and greatness Thus by the grace of this mysterie we go out of our own Interests to enter into the Interest of Jesus Christ whereof the Apostle speaking of the things of the world he saith I count them but dung that I may win Christ. Fourthly In brief by the state of Christianity we are advanced to the participation of God who will be all in us that we may be in him and Jesus Christ by his body and blood which he giveth us in the Eucharist doth elevate and unite us to God makes us live by his life communicates to us all that he is that he may be all things to us that the world may be nothing to us Thus the grace of Christianity unites us to Jesus Christ replenishes us with his life and spirit makes us another himself and therefore obliges us to go out of our selves and the world to be in Christ Jesus I know we must be in the world and make use of the world so long as it shall please God to continue us in this place of captivity but we must not be of the world we must live here as in a place of passage and make use of all in the world as of a winter garment ready to put it off when the Sun of righteousness shall come to his meridian when it shall please God Let us use all the creatures as a necessary medicine to the present state of our infirmities and occasions but let it be withall loathsom unto us as violating our Love which desires nothing but God which takes delight in nothing but God which aspires to nothing and hopes in nothing but God The conclusion of the first Part What the life of a Christian ought to be Behold here the Excellencies of Christianity which we have proposed in few words as having no further design nor intention in this volume then to shew that the life of a Christian ought to be conformable to the state of grace and dignity whereto he is advanced by Iesus Christ. Now to enter into this knowledge it suffices that we see what we are This is that which I design'd to demonstrate in this first part proposing as in a little Tablet the essence dignity and eminency of the grace of Christianity which I have done briefly expressing onely the principal Truth of this subject leaving the rest to the piety and consideration of those that would profit thereby Now if we look back with the eye of Faith upon that which hath been said we shall clearly see what a Christian life ought to be and shall know that the design of Iesus Christ informing his Church hath been to consecrate to appropriate to himself and to unite himself divinely to our souls and to separate them from themselves and from all creatures that by a happy revolution he may be in us and we in him we may live in him and of him as he lives in his Father of the life of his Father that so he may restore us to his Father and re-unite us to himself from whom we were separated by him by being our own and having relation to the Creature Herein is comprised the perfection of a Christian life whereof we cannot speak more then in the words of St. Paul ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God a passage which contains an apparent contradiction If we are dead how can our life be hid in God who is the true life If we are in God who is the life of our souls how are we dead The Apostle meanes that our life is life and death our life is a life of grace which is the true life of souls and much better then the soul is the life of our bodies and the proper
effect of the grace of Christianity is to operate in us that which natural death doth By death the soul is separated from the body and all things in the world So grace should separate us from our selves from all things from sin that being wholly so separated we may be dead to our selves and to all things that we may live in God and of God This expression of the Apostle further shews all the properties of a Christian life the end whereof is that being separated from all we may be in Iesus Christ that is to say united by an indissoluble Vnion to Iesus Christ life of his life and be referred with him to the glory of the most holy Trinity The life of a Christian St. Paul saith is hid because it is indeed hid from the sight of the World which neither sees it as it is nor esteems it and because it is little humble and abject disdains to behold to take notice of it as unworthy the name and society of men They that will live Christianly will not subject themselves to the corruption of the men of this age so this life is hid from the sight and more from the power of this world for the soul that liveth christianly is above all humane power and insensible to all contempt and confusion and as the Diamond continues entire and strengthened by the violence of blowes so the perfect christian remains more content in the violence of Temptation more assured in the motions of disgrace more firm amidst the batteries of afflictions even Prosperity changeth not his spirit he is alike in all things for by grace and true Christian vertues the soul is raised above all things and lives in God Ye are dead and yet your life is hid with Iesus Christ in God Such is the life of a christian according to St. Paul a life that imitates that of Iesus Christ upon earth who according to the Oracles of the Prophets was despised and rejected of men a Man of sorrow and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him he was despised and we esteemed him not When Hell the World Devill sinners thought to triumph over him and ravish both his honour and life at the same time he triumphs over them shewing that he hath power as he saith to lay down his life and he hath power to take it again at his pleasure Thus the life of Iesus Christ is hid from the eyes of men who know him not and from their power seeing he triumphs over his Enemies over death and sin Such ought to be the life of a Christian. St. Paul saith the same in other termes when he exhorts the Ephesians that they put off concerning the former conversation the old Man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirits of their mind and that they put on the new Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness This is the first Protestation we make in Baptisme in which solemn action before that we are consecrated to the holy Trinity received and made the children of God we make a particular protestation to renounce Adam and the World and adhere to Iesus Christ to separate our selves from the one to unite our selves to the other So in this action so holy and happy we uncloath our selves of the one to cloath us again with the other that is the first step we make into the state of Christianity according to St. Paul And if we believe his Doctrine we see that the perfection of a Christian and all his happinesse consists in adhering to Iesus Christ to be united to him and cloathed with him For as all the grandeur of humane nature which was chosen in the Mysterie of the Incarnation to be the nature of God consists in being united to the word which subsisteth in him and operates by him so all the perfection of a christian soul consists in dwelling in Iesus Christ in adhering to him and operating by him all the perfection of a christian soul consists in that it dwells in Christ that it adheares to him that it lives of his life and operates not but by his spirit Now this cannot be but when the Soul is divided from it self and from all creatures for according to St. Paul We are to put off the old man with his deeds and to put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him Whence it followeth that abnegation and uncloathing is the principal point of christian perfection so necessary that St. Bernard saith It had been better for us never to have been then to dwell in our selves and to our selves for the greatest misfortune of the soul is to see it self separated from God But God comes not into neither dwells in the soul till such time as it goeth out of it self uncloathes and annihilates it self And the greater its annihilation is the more it makes place for God If it take but little away God fills it with little if it deprive it self of much God fills it much and without doubt he will take it up and dwell wholly in it if the soul do annihilate and wholly uncloath it self We see and adore this proceeding of God in the Mysterie of the Incarnation the cause and example of the life of our souls For the eternall word choosing humane nature to unite himself unto it and to operate in and by it our redemptions would uncloath it of its own substance and humane person to shew us that we are not acceptable to God if we do not abandon our selves and that if we divest our selves of our selves and deprive our selves of all created things God will fill us with divine things for Grace as well as Nature abhorres vacuity Let us learn then to deprive our selves of humane things that we may be inriched with divine Let us go out of our selves and quit the commerce that we have with the creatures to be in Iesus Christ to enter into society and communion with God Let us renounce our own spirits and government to leave our selves to that of Iesus Christ and suffer him to live and raign in us according to what he truly designed of us In brief let us divest our selves of our selves to re-invest our selves with the Sonne of God Herein consists the happiness of our souls and that Christian perfection that we ought to search for here upon earth The necessity and practise whereof are in the following Treatises THE SECOND PART Wherein are proposed the sundry Motives which oblige Christians to Perfection CHAP. I. The Obligation that we have to acquire true Vertues wherein consists the life of the Soul and the inward life of a Christian. MAN being in honour abideth not but is compared unto the Beasts that perish Thus David describing the deplorable estate of man after sin a sad condition a miserable fall which hath deprived man
regret that a great number of souls shut the door of their hearts to God oppose themselves to Iesus Christ and his grace and by consequence will never arrive to perfection what pains soever they take because they neglect and disesteem the practices of true vertue and slight them to adhere too much to their own sense to love themselves too much and to seek too greedily their proper interests This is that to speak properly which hinders them from resigning themselves to the conduct of God Hence it proceeds that by too much seeking after their own satistaction their profit and the contentment of their spirit they grieve the spirit of God captivate grace and lose themselves in seeking themselves and in stead of uniting themselves to God they separate themselves from him and which is more to be feared they go out of the ordinances of heaven and from the counsels of God to follow their own will their own desires and their own conduct to tye themselves to their own flattering affections It is they must give remedy to their own mishap Let us leave them to speak to souls who will quit themselves wholly to acquire the happy possession of vertues CHAP. II. Severall practises whereof we may make use to attain Christian Vertues SInce the life of a Christian must be a life of grace a life representing the life of God expressing in man the perfections of Divinity it followeth that the actions of a Christian proceeding from such a Principle be great and suitable to such an estate and worthy the spirit of God which dwels in it by the grace of adoption And if the vertues of a Christian are so worthy and rare certainly the dispositions must be also great the way to obtain them singular and the practice extraordinary For as there is great difference between the morall vertues of Philosophy and the supernaturall of a Christian so must the practice hereof be different and extraordinary The wisest of the times past gave Precepts to form man and instate him in the most perfect use of reason they prescribed Laws to overcome and subject the passions to the reasonable will the most noble part of the soul. But all this considered is no more then to make us perfect men that is very reasonable but our business is to make our selves perfect Christians and as it is much more to be Christians then to be men there being a great difference between them so the practises imposed for attaining these two estates are different one as much advanced above the other as the state of a Christian is above that of a man as grace is above nature We must now build upon this foundation and advance the edifice of Christian perfection upon the principles we intend to propose Therefore we must speak and act as Christians not as Philosophers I say then to attain Christian vertues we must before all things have a great desire of Christian perfection and a resolution to labour in the acquisition of true vertues as much as is necessary and as God requires of us This desire must be efficacious and permanent from the bottom of our heart It is good also to awaken if often and to form acts thereof with application of spirit The first means to obtain vertue is prayer The soul that applies her self with perseverance to prayer cannot fail of the possession of vertue Prayer is understood two wayes first as a demand as if we should say that if we demand vertue of God he will give it us If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally This Proposition is true in this sense but this demand must be accompanyed with these considerations true desire of vertue perseverance in prayer a vigilancy to become faithful to the grace that God communicates to us otherwise our demand will be without effect our prayer without fruit It is not sufficient for the soul that would be said to arrive at Christian perfection to nourish in it self vertuous desires and to demand them of God if she be not also careful to demand them as she ought and if she doth not with vigilancy labour in the practise and exercise of these vertues God will have us co-operate with his grace and put to our hand to do with him what he will operate in us so that to obtain vertues we must demand them of God but in demanding them we must labour therein Thus we must understand the acquisition of vertues by prayer This Proposition is built upon this truth That we cannot have vertue unless God give it and God gives it not but with an intent that we should co-operate therein and that we should labour on our parts shewing in this co-operation the fidelity of our souls For this end hath God given us free will There is yet another way of obtaining vertues by prayer understanding by prayer meditation or as we say ordinarily mentall prayer The soul which applies it self to this exercise considering the greatness of the Divinity the verities of Faith the beauty and stability of eternall things the inconstancy of temporall the vanity of all in the World easily apprehends the love of Truth and a contempt of vanity two foundations necessary to the perfections of a Christian life the soul by this exercise remaining united and tyed to God receives the rayes of this divine light which is the life and way of our souls and if she persevere with fidelity must at last be wounded with this love which she so contemplates By this means entring into the enjoyment of divine love which is alwayes liberall of Communications she will infallibly receive the Vertues necessary for her and be inriched with most pure gifts agreeable to the greatness of God who will give her more then sufficiently graces convenient for living in the perfection of Christian Vertues wherein appeares the necessity and profit of this manner of prayer which elevates us to God causes us to enter into a conversation with God unites us to him enlightens us transforms us and disposes us to the life of grace and leads us to the acquisition and possession of true Vertues Food is not so necessary to the life of the body as this manner of prayer to the life of the soul and the acquisition of Vertues The second meanes to acquire Christian vertues is mortification which is absolutely necessary to the soul that will live the life of grace that is to say Christianly We must remember and intentively consider that we are all the Children of Adam living his life following the inclinations of the being of Adam to be christian is to be the Child of Iesus Christ to live his life wholly to follow the spirit motions and holy inclinations of Iesus Christ into this state and new-being we are put by Baptisme As many of you saith St. Paul as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ meaning they are made like the Son of God
practising that vertue she may effect it in her spirit that is beare inwardly the sense of that vertue as outwardly she produceth the action Thus shall she practise vertue in her heart inwardly as she does practise it by her hands outwardly This is founded upon generall principles that the exteriour is nothing without the interiour so that we must first labour to form and perfectionate our interiour which is to exteriour actions as the wheels of the Clock are to the weights or rather as the soul is to the body All the World holds this for truth yet we seem not to consider enough what the meaning of interiour is that onely the intention must be good as many think and believe that it suffices in all things to have a good intention and simple regard to the Action But when we speak of the interiour we mean the bottom of the soul which is to Christian actions life as the Earth is to the fruits she produceth and as the root is to the Tree which it nourisheth and enliveneth The bottom of the soul is the true principle and life of all our actions By the bottom of the soul we understand a true and reall goodness which is in the soul a pure intention that accompanies her grace that assists her necessary and suitable dispositions to the vertues which are in her all this I call the bottom of the soul. What will it profit a man to practise an action of outward humility and to do it with a good intention if in the bottom of his soul he hath a proud will what doth it serve for in a Christian to get the true vertue of charity outwardly to give alms and be liberall and in the bottom of his soul to bear a heart pitiless and covetous It is certain that after this manner he shall never acquire vertue though he had all the good intentions in the world because the foundation of his soul which is the true interiour is not good the first thing he must do is to perfectionate the bottom of his soul and to form his interiour after the manner proposed to know the essence and spirit of vertue Let us propose a particular example of some vertue as a rule for all the rest we will take humility which is necessary for all Christians If we would acquire this vertue and practise it we must first know wherein it consists that when we would produce the acts thereof we may form them in the interiour spirit of this vertue conformable to our knowledge of it For how can we practise a vertue if we know it not How shall we perform an act of humility if we know not what humility is We must then study to know the vertue that we would acquire unless God himself incited by his bounty give us the spirit of it without knowing it But speaking according to the ordinary wayes of the practise of vertues we must know them that when we would acquire them by practise we must endeavour to do the Acts and accompany them with a sense and thought of vertue We must further yet put our selves into dispositions interiour and convenient to the vertue we would acquire as in the vertue of humility it must be in an esteem of God alone in a mean opinion of our selves in a desire of confusion and contempt and to do this from the bottom of the soul. The soul being in these dispositions will endeavour to apply her thoughts thereto when it shall be time to do any outward actions thereof For example If she do an act of outward humility it will excite in her heart a thought and a sense of humility and awaken in her some disposition conformable to this vertue and so she will do this exteriour Act by an esteem and pure desire of humility with mean esteem of her self To do an action after this sort is that which I call to do it in the spirit and in the dispositions of vertue To see how necessary this is we need no other Witness then Experience no other Judge then Reason for how can we for example get the vertue of humility though we should perform infinite and extraordinary acts of it if we know not this vertue and if in practising it outwardly we reflect not upon it self How can we conceive that a man can attain this vertue by any extraordinary practice whatsoever if we bring contrary dispositions It is evidently impossible We must therefore take care to establish it in the dispositions of vertue and first labour to form her interiour for he that shall have an ill foundation in his soul cannot produce good fruits Can we acquire humility if at the same time that we produce exteriour acts of humility our soul is filled with esteem of our selves our spirit full of doubleness our sense given to curiosity our whole heart tyed to our proper interests It is cleer that in so doing it will be an impossible labour We must then confess that to attain true Christian vertues it is necessary to have inward care that is to say that the first thing we must study is to take care that the bottom of our souls be good If the root be holy so are the branches Then we must labour to acquire the dispositions necescessary to accompany vertue to do otherwise is to take the shadow and to leave the substance to bear the image of vertue and to have the reality of vice it is to pursue continually and to take nothing but flyes We see the experience in them who think only of the exteriour and have no care but of certain superficiall practices and rules that look not to the bottom of the interiour but very little or afar off such souls are void of God and without vertue having only a deceitful appearance like false pearls which are filled but with wind mountains in shew but touch them and you shall see come out of them nothing but smoke Vertue is an heritage too noble it must be bought with good money I mean it must be gain'd by practices suitable to her dignity Let us apply our particular subject to that we have said in generall We treat in the Discourse of the life of grace of Christian perfection and of the subjection wherein a soul ought to be towards God and it being proposed how to acquire true vertue it consequently treats of annihilating the spirit in our selves the care and conduct we have of our selves to resigne us to God and not to live but in subjection to his spirit onely and to his grace We have made the necessity of this estate sufficiently appear and the obligation that we have thereto there rests nothing but to shew the means whereby we may enter into these dispositions suitable to her without which we may truly say that the soul shall never attain the true and constant practice of vertue which yet is necessary to many who think not thereon For we may averr not without fears and
Interest they care onely to satisfie themselves in a word they are but themselves and full of self-love you shall know these Trees by their fruits and the end will let you see that do but touch these Mountains and nothing will come out but smoke God dwells not with Baal let us not go two wayes the soul who will possess God who is purity must be pure must purge and take from it self all that displeases God for flesh and blood possess not God There is another deceit whereto we must take heed which is of those that believe they do much and think that God is endebted to them when their Conscience troubles them not with any deadly sin that is when they themselves say they avoid them all for that according to the truth of this proposition simply taken it is certain he who dies without mortall sin shall be a Saint But laying aside many things that may be said against this abuse I will onely make it appeare that they support themselves upon a Reed for I advise all those souls that speak so to acquaint themselves with their own state because that to know the state of our Consciences and our faults as they are we must know what they are before God and by the light of God We cannot have this knowledge but in as much as we are filled with the light of truth and as we esteem God and his greatness But if we did esteem God and acknowledge his greatness and if we did live in the light of the truth we would never speak thus On the contrary we should not onely shun mortall sin but even the least faults for knowing God and esteeming his greatness we love him loving him we fear to do any thing that may displease him be it never so triviall and they therefore who onely regard and fear the grossest sins and care not for the rest assuredly neither know nor esteem God They know him not for they cannot know the state of their Consciences and consequently they deceive themselves when they ground their assurance on a pretence that they are not troubled with mortall sins and that so much the more in that they care not for all the rest believing they are well assur'd of their salvation Alass who is he that can be assured he is worthy of love or hate what presumption is it in men of this age to assure themselves amidst so many dangers Saint Paul the mirrour of Sanctity said of himself I know nothing by my self yet I am not hereby justified and elsewhere he sayes that he runs and labours alwayes because he is not arrived to that perfection God requires of him We must say the same in what state soever we are Whence I conclude that to live in the purity that God requires of a Christian he must not onely shun all sin but further have a generall care and particular vigilance to do nothing which may displease God whatsoever it be and must neglect nothing conducing thereto and herein consisteth purity in the first sense Purity taken in the second manner implies no other thing then a pure regard of man to God be it for the soul or for the body This purity is greatly important and altogether necessary to those who would live as perfect Christians by this purity the soul regards onely God she doth nothing but in the sight of God she seeks nothing but his Will if she love it is onely God if she affect any thing else it is onely for God and according to God in every thing she seeks his glory and satisfaction all creatures are before her as if they were not in this consists the essence of this vertue Perhaps we shall make it better known by proposing the wayes and meanes whereby we may arrive to the acquisition of so divine a vertue The first I place in purity and simplicity of intention when the soul in all that she does annihilates all her intentions her desires her motions her thoughts and admits none but the pure desire of complying with God I call this intention simple because it must be clear and naked without consulting Reason in any thing This intention is simple because it is one wholly and alwayes equall in all things it regards God onely and him continually in brief this intention and regard is simple because it onely rests upon God the soul that seeks this vertue seeks onely God O how desirable is this vertue how happy is this manner of life This is that which unites the soul to God that which pleaseth God and is fit to bear God The second meanes to arrive at the possession of this vertue is by denying our selves when we renounce our selves and admit no resentment that beares impurity and respect to our selves or the creature as the esteem of our own merit of our capacity of our vocation the content of a Neighbour the profit of Friends the acquisition of Vertue and such other things that cause us to stray from God We must annihilate all these resentments and thoughts to persist in the unity and bare simplicity of the pure regard of God the pleasure of God his glory and his content is a thing more important and infinitely of more worth then can be imagin'd yea then the salvation of all men The soul therefore that seeks God and perfection for that is all one must carefully take heed to this manner of purity for to regard any thing but God and to love out of God is to love unworthily and to love any other thing with God whatsoever it be to think thereon to seek it and to care for it is to make too little account of God it is to esteem his love too meanly Men addicted to this World will passe over this lightly and perhaps with contempt but I wish all that heartily seek God and are in the number of those whom God holds in his hand and regards to all eternity with a regard of love and good will that they think of what worth this eternall regard of God is who regards us without ceasing that they consider what God deserves and demand of God that which he pleases for this regard of his love I am confident that these thoughts would lead them to true piety The third meanes to attain this Vertue is vigilancy whereby we take heed to that which God does in us to correspond faithfully with the designes he hath to purifie us for by this vertue he is infused and God by his operations incessantly purifies us It is the duty of the soul to watch the occasions that God giveth her I say to watch for the love of our selves is very cunning to separate us from God and to apply us to our senses under pretence of vertue and necessity The devout soul must seriously take heed least she destroy in her self the works of God This is the design of Satan they are his ordinary subtleties that deceive the most fervent by this meanes destroying
our heart and form in our soul an alienation and displeasure of too great a love born to our selves and of that adherence and fastning which we have for the creature And for as much as one of the greatest hindrances to vertue is to think tacitely or actually that we have vertue we must believe that we are at a great distance from the purity and perfection God demands of us and are filled with our selves the affection of the creature and voyd of God Hence we proceed and raise in our selves a continuall hunger after God a desire and a firm purpose to approach unto him to love him to please him and to separate our selves from our selves and from all creatures We must think upon these words Thou sayest I am rich and encreased with goods and have need of nothing and knowest not thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked In fine as all Evangelick perfection practised and preached by Iesus Christ consisteth in two points in love of God only and in hate of our selves we must study to establish and advance our selves in these two Principles we must vigilantly seek God in all occurrences in all things at all times and annihilate our selves upon all occasions and objects presented to us The second Practise must be actuall abnegation we must study to annihilate and go out of our selves This may be done two wayes One when we seek occasions to practise self-deniall or choose some exercise upon this subject This is for those who have courage and a great desire to be God's and to live good Christians But many belive not that they ought to renounce and have not sufficient courage to seek occasions to annihilate themselves There is another manner whereby they may profit by this exercise which is to receive with a spirit of self-deniall whatever happens to them and to entertain it as from the hands of God without which nothing can happen unto us and to whom all the powers of the earth are subject Here the soul must have a care to be faithfull to God when any occasions occurre to practise the interiour or exteriour self-deniall to make good use of it as God shall give him power and according to the objects God shall cause them to be presented to him It is a Lesson that all Christians ought to learn that we are obliged and it must be our continuall endeavour to destroy in us the old man even in the least things if we will have the new Adam Iesus Christ to live in us If it be demanded what self-deniall is since it concerns us so much to practise it I answer to practise self-deniall is to go out of our selves and to sever our selves from the creature to employ our heart and make our selves fit to bear God for our heart is God's and he created it by his power he consecrated it by his grace to dwell there and be there as a Father in his family the Sun in the heavens a King in his kingdom Sin drives him from thence the love of our selves and the creature holds the place of God and hath the boldness and rashness to seat it self in the Throne of God This love of our selves and of the creature reignes tyrannically in us usurps the right of divinity does all there that God ought to do The duty of a Christian is to establish God in his Throne to re-place him in his heart and to let him raign in his soul. To do this we must necessarily drive away this love of our selves and extirpate our affection to the creature This is the office of self-denyall which annihilates us and makes us go out of our selves and clear our heart to replace therein the fulness of God To practise self-denyall and for a man to go out of himself is to have no other desire then purely to please God to have no other will then his to have nothing but God before his eyes and to quit all considerations of the World onely to seek the glory of God To go out of our selves is to lose the care of our selves either of the soul or body to commit our selves wholly to the will of God to abandon our selves wholly to his conduct and the order he hath established from all eternity over our life It is to think no more of that which concerns us and to desire no more that any love us or esteem us no more to seek our own interests or satisfaction but onely the pure will of God So to live is to go out of and to annihilate our selves for the soul by these practises renounces and annihilates in her self all affections all respects all care of the Creature all that is not God or of God and so renders her self capable to possess God To attain this practise of this vertue besides the meanes already supposed a third may be added which is when God himself operates in the soul the annihilation he would have there and there are two ordinary wayes that he makes use of herein one by christian and justifying grace which cannot be in the soul till he drive thence and annihilates what is contrary to him and as far as it reigns herein and possesses the heart it proportionably annihilates in us this love of our selves and of the Creature so truly that we may say there is as much of the one as there is little of the other for grace and the love of our selves cannot reign together one drives away the other Besides grace God makes use of divers favours and communications secret and interiour as lights motions and other divine and loving operations whereby he infallibly operates self-denyall and annihilation in us It is a true principle that God never operates any effects which bring not purity self-denyall and annihilation into the soule where these effects meet not it is a certain mark that it is not the work of God for God who is purity cannot operate but purely he is alwayes like himself If there be an operation of God there is purity and consequently annihilation for purity annihilates impurity If in the operation which the soul bears there is not the effect of purity and annihilation 't is not an operation of God or an effect of grace but an effect of proper or naturall love or else of the Devill who can transform himself into an Angel of light but he cannot give the soul the effects of light which is to be observed thereby to know how to discern naturall operations from those of grace This truth will appear most clear if we consider the designs of God in his divine and loving communications We know that God doth not communicate himself nor work in our souls but to prepare and render them worthy and capable to receive him being therein received he will possess and fill them with his fulness How can all this be done in the soul if God at first by his operations doth not purifie the soul and separate it
perfection that we possess nor from solid vertue whereof we have not one grain but from self-love from adhering to our own wills from wamt of mortification and most commonly from secret vanity We fall not into these evils but because we have not sought God purely but our selves and our own satisfactions and for not endeavouring the possession of solid and Christian vertues The remedy of all this you shall find in the Image of a perfect Christian which I here present to your view Consider the vertues which imbellish him labour to attain them see the dispositions wherein he is how pure and solid they are endeavour to enter into them and concern your self therein and I am confident that you shall find a stable peace you shall put a Paradise into your heart you shall find in all that hath been said the foundation of this pourtraict and the interiour of a perfect Christian. THE FOURTH PART Sheweth how we must guide our selves in all occurrences and in all estates of humane life CHAP. I. Of the care a Christian ought to have to perfect his exteriour TO draw the last lines of our perfect Christian we must present likewise his outward appearance for therein also consisteth his perfection The interiour and the exteriour are two estates so conjoyned and dependant one upon another that the perfection of a man cannot be intire if those two estates are not in all things conformable One is the image of the other and as the ancient divine Philosopher said Beauty is a flash of goodness as all flowers and leaves take their beauty from the root so all that is outwardly fair in man is but a beam of his inward goodness the fruits and leaves of his perfect and vertuous actions are but the effects of the root of inward perfection Inward perfection begets the outward one cannot be without the other Good if it be perfect must be such in all parts if one fail this defect takes away its vertue and makes it vicious Man is a whole composed of parts neither all soul nor all body but consisting of both To be good he must be perfect in both in the soul the interiour in the body the exteriour in the actions of the one as the faculties of the other St. Ambrose speaking of the Mother of God the pattern of vertue saith that her exteriour Beauty her demeanour and the actions of her life were images of the vertues and incomparable perfections of her soul and although Iesus Christ by the Mystery of the Incarnation meant to hide the greatness of his Divinity in the lowness of our nature and hid himself thirty years in an obscure life yet it alwayes appeared from time to time nor could he avoid it but that his face his body and actions discover'd what he was Nor indeed could it be otherwise for the exteriour can have no good but what it borrows of the interiour as of its root and the interiour cannot be perfect but the exteriour will bear and manifest the effects thereof Vertue if it be true hath a lustre like the Emerald which sparkles in the obscurest night it can no more be hid then fire can be retain'd in the bosom of the Earth which will force a way to its centre or the light of the Sun be clouded by any shade so thick but its beams will break through So likewise is it impossible for a man to have a good vertuous interiour and the splendor of his vertues not appear to the eyes of men through the most secret of his actions This is the intention of God and a sign that the vertue we have is heavenly for it tends alwayes to its centre And as the needle touched by the Loadstone is in perpetuall motion till it hath found her North So the soul touched by the vertue of Heaven is alwayes in action seeking every where till she have found her God Men light not a Candle to put it under a Bushel God gives not vertue to smother it he will glorifie himself in his Elect. If our vertue be of God it will manifest the effects thereof causing it self to be honour'd and acknowledg'd For this reason they who have any sense of Heaven who love the truth and walk sincerely never approve those who dissemble in the World and appear evill or lesse good not regarding the exteriour so they have a good intention let the rest go as it will It is sufficient they say that God knowes them they alwayes condemn those who out of reasons of state or private considerations outwardly appear either evil or indifferent hide themselves when they pray dare not communicate in publick or do any act of vertue in view of their Neighbours We must not indeed endeavour to be seen much lesse to be esteemed or affect the sight of men but on the other side we must not fear them We are oblig'd to have an exteriour as well as an interiour and we must please and honour God as well by the exteriour as by the interiour Every one will grant that it is not allowed any to be good and to appear evill it is scandalous nay further it is impossible to be good and commit evill actions for a good Tree cannot bring forth evill fruit If we live in the spirit saith St. Paul let us also walk in the spirit he meanes our life is a life of God for spirit with St. Paul signifies God and if our interiour be truly perfect according to Christian perfection whereof we have sufficiently spoken our exteriour actions must also be in spirit and in a divine spirit and must bear the image of God who lives in us This may be more clearly understood by the advice of the same St. Paul we walk not saith he speaking of good Christians after the flesh but after the spirit He then that will be a good Christian must order his outward actions according to the spirit of God who lives in us not after the flesh and the World enemies to the spirit of God To be vertuous and to do acts of vice to have light in the heart and to do actions of darkness to be in the Temple of God and to sacrifice to Baal can neither be comprehended by man nor approved by reason To desire to please the World and to be circumcised and worship the Moon is to be a Samaritan God loves simplicity sincerity and curses the double heart He then that will be a perfect Christian must have his heart in his hands and his hands in his heart if he esteem God truly in his heart he must shew it in his works if he fear God in his soul why doth he not testifie it in his actions what can we love thee well O God of our souls yet make shew to hate thee Can we have thee in our hearts and thy enemy the World in our hands and mouth No no a Christian if he fear God at home in his own house will fear
have this Disposition perfect the soul in its sufferings eversions and humiliation and in all the contrarieties of humane life must have no other thought nor interiour state but to suffer because it is the pleasure of God she should suffer This I call a pure regard of God she suffers onely to praise God onely because God hath delight to see her suffer and wills that she should suffer This Dispositition is the state that the Wise man calls the Sacrifice of the Holocaust a sacrifice killed and layd whole on the Altar as the holocaust is all consumed and annihilated to the glory content and honour of God alone without the Creatures having any part therein so the soul suffering in this pure regard of God sacrifices her self wholly to God and is wholly consumed in the good pleasure of God without her bringing or receiving any other intention thought or state wherein her happiness doth consist For God seeing the soul suffer onely for his content and good pleasure gives her a sufficiency and capacity to suffer with so much liberty and amplitude that she no longer regards what she suffers nor thinks more of sufferings but only thinks to do the good pleasure of God So that she undergoes not sufferings with pain but with love and with a disposition that beares in it more of love then of sufferance in the suffering it self resigning her self wholly to God and to all the effects of his spirit and grace how vigorous soever they may be thinking no more of sufferings but believing and loving and in this disposition love is the life of sufferings and sufferings are the object of love of a love pure and perfect To suffer according to divine wayes may yet be understood in another manner when in sufferings mortifications and humiliations the soul is such to God and so firmly united that all things in the World are painfull to her all is unsupportable to her and her own body causes her to sigh and lament saying with the Apostle We groan within our selves waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body Every where she findes contrariety and the more she lives in Iesus Christ the more she feels the weight of the Creature all her repose is to be Gods she seeks not nor findes any thing but pain and contrariety for she findes all her pleasure all her repose and content to be in the good pleasure of God In this disposition the soul must be really lost in God for she no more beares all the adversities of humane life but according to the spirit of God with a divine patience that is in the same manner that God beares them or if you will in the spirit wherewith Iesus Christ suffered our nature our sins and the Worlds a patience which we must adore and imitate in Iesus Christ for he did not onely beare them but also which is admirable in the excess of his love gave his life a divine life for our sins and by the same patience bearing the contrariety that his divine and infinite essence hath to all impure and limited creatures he acted with the creature laboured and died for it This patience of Iesus Christ is the beginning and cause of our happiness this patience is the cause that all the just and holy that ever were in the Church militant have born all adversities with peace and meekness this patience must alwayes make us to suffer all the rigours of this life but after a manner so much more perfect and divine as the soul hath received of grace and is advanced in the way of perfection according to the measure that the soul is possessed of the life of Iesus Christ to the same measure the spirit of sufferance must be pure in her and she must remain more resign'd to the designes of God more divided from all Creatures In this point consisteth the principall subject to be examined whereby to know the fidelity of the soul. He that would know the way to make use of this divine spirit must learn it of Iesus Christ who is the rule and example of our life and actions all that he did all that he suffered had relation to the glory of his Father to the exaltation of his name to the establishment of the Kingdom of God in our souls In a word he lived in the World and dyed upon the Crosse onely to do the good pleasure and will of his Father My meat said he to his Apostles is to do the will of him that sent me This was the end of his coming and of his incarnation Let us do the same and remember that as we must have purity of intention in all our actions so must we in all our suffering have a pure regard to the will and good pleasure of God When we shall suffer whatsoever it be let us suffer it because God permits it or so appoints it or because he will shew his power over us and will be glorified in our subjection Let us not regard our own interest but undervalue all things in respect of the glory of God Let us endure them onely in regard of God since it is his will since he takes pleasure to see us in sufferings and in the Crosse and that he will shew his power in our submission Let us reduce all our intentions hither they may be good but this includes all the rest In this disposition Iesus Christ prepared himself for the Crosse and presented himself to his Father to be the offering and the sacrifice of the holocaust a propitiation for our sins Thy will be done said he and no more let us say the same in all events let us settle the foundation of our soul in this estate and disposition To this we must add a remarkable admonition for those who will profit by sufferings humiliations and other adversities of humane life and bear them with faithfulness And that is this that in all conditions of life in all that may happen to us we must endeavour to find out if it be possible the designes which God hath over us in all that he does or permits to be done and we are to be very carefull to receive them and co-operate faithfully with them For as God in all he does or permits hath alwayes some design worthy of his greatness and goodness so is it the duty of the soul to submit her self thereto to subject her self according to all her capacity that with an intire consent she may act with God if need be and receive with fidelity all things according to the designes and intentions of God as for instance There happens losses and ruines we are to see if God by these losses would separate and sever us from the Creatures If it be so we must accept them with this disposition and make it our endeavour to sever and deprive our selves of the love of all things created because that by the losses and disgraces which befall us we see that
where sin had abounded that love might triumph over us Let us then descend to the particularities of grace and examine the properties and effects thereof The grace which we receive and sanctifies us is the grace of Iesus Christ which flowes from his fulness and communicates to our souls grace which is not onely supernaturall but was made for Iesus and is proportioned to his Soveraignty and infinite dignity whence we are called Christians It hath all its being dignity and residence in Iesus it is above our nature and in the rank of supernaturall things in an order soveraign and particular worthy of the soveraignty of Iesus and proportioned to his Filiation order and grace very different from the originall Iustice which was given to the first man For though the grace of Adam were supernatural yet was it an order very inferiour to Christian grace being proportioned to his nature and inclinations in the state of innocency All men as well as Adam had been sanctified in the order and according to the order of nature and in the naturall uses thereof But it is not so in Christian grace for that is not proportioned to the nature of man but above it wholly in Iesus wholly for him it issues out of him and by an effect proper and particular to it drawes us from our selves to unite us to him as members to the head and being united sanctifies us in Him in such a manner as that we are no more in the quality of men and Children of Adam but as Children of God and members of the Sonne of God and by a grace proper to the Sonne of God of whose fulness we have all received Whence we infer that he who would be sanctified and partake of Christian grace must be united to Iesus Christ as the branch to the Tree the graft to the stock the members to the head and if united must also be one with him as the head and members make up but one body and consequently by reason of that unity must not onely partake of his grace but also his spirit and life in the same manner as we say the members move not themselves nor live but by the life of their head This being considered we see that to live Christianly it is not enough to say that we must be in grace but we must live in the spirit and life of Iesus for grace produceth this effect for as much as by the same principle whereby we are united to Iesus as members to their head we must live his life and be guided by his spirit And as it is the property of Christian grace to unite us to the Sonne of God so is it the effect of the same grace to rule us by his spirit and to make us live his life wherein appeares how perfect the life of a Christian in grace should be how exemplary and holy his actions must be how regular his motions and how pure his intentions seeing it is a life of grace which unites us to the Son of God which making us one with him causes us to live in his spirit and life Let us enter further into the consideration of grace and we shall see that according to the Apostle Grace is a participation of the divine nature These words contain the excellency of Christianity and describe all that can be said of grace The Apostle implies that we are accidentally what God is substantially and that which agrees with God and is proper to him according to his divine nature is appropriated to us and may be convenient for us according to the spirit of grace so that by grace we are elevated from our own baseness to the fellowship of Iesus Christ and we are put out of our selves to receive a new being in God Can any thing be said more admirable or great If we reflect on this truth we must needs confess that to live according to Christian grace and bear it's effects in our souls we must go out of our selves and be no more our own nor in our selves When we say we must go out of our selves we would intimate that the Christian to live like a perfect Christian must regard nothing but God mind no Interest but that of the glory of God please none but God have no desire but to accomplish the will of God In brief he must renounce himself and the love of all things to love none but God To live so as to go out of ones self is in two words all that we have proposed in the fourth Part. This is a Point may be thought hard and too high yet the practice thereof is necessary according to those words of the Son of God He that will follow me let him deny himself where we see how much a Christian is obliged to renounce all and to go out of himself after the manner we have declared which will appear more cleer if we consider the essence of the Precept of love for the love of Christianity is a love says Dionysius the Areopagite extatick that is to say it raiseth us to a contempt of our selves and all things to unite us to God who is essentially love and charity so that by the perfection of Christianity which is in the love of God we are drawn from the love of our selves and the creature to be onely God's and not to enjoy our selves in any thing but in God Thus which way soever we consider Christianity we find that both love and Christian grace causes us to go out of our selves to unite us to God and make us partakers of his divine Nature The SEQUELE FRom the Principle of Truth last explained we learn the great difference between the state of Innocency in Adam and the Christian righteousness in Iesus Christ for Adam had a power over all things it was permitted him to enjoy the whole world and to rejoyce therein Original righteousness and the grace of the first man was in that and in the lawfull use of all things but Christian grace is quite contrary for God wills not any more that man rejoyce and content himself in any thing but in him that he live not but for him that he alone be his possession and heritage Besides the state of Adam was in exaltation in the possession in the satisfaction and pleasure that he might lawfully take in the creatures that were subjected to him during the time that he remained in obedience to God But the state of Christianity is wholly opposite it consists altogether in privations in humiliations in dejections and in summ it devests man of all power even that which he hath of himself that he may be wholly Iesus Christ's that separating himself from the creatures and from himself Iesus Christ might be his All and his Fulness that by Christian grace he might enter into society with Iesus Christ and by him with his Father according to what the beloved Apostle promised us when he said That your fellowship be with the Father
and Iesus Christ his Son Thus all the fruition satisfaction pleasure and exaltation that man took in the creature by originall righteousness he takes in God making a happy change and possessing the Creator for the creature wherein is verified the word of Saint Paul where sin did abound grace did superabound By Christian grace we are drawn from the creature and from our selves to be in Iesus Christ to possess God and to take no content or satisfaction but in God The Christian by this grace takes all in God lives not but for God and lives the life of Iesus the Son of God In this sense the Apostle fill'd with this grace saith I live but it is no more I that live but Iesus Christ who liveth in me We should all say the same for Christian grace makes us to live of the life of Iesus which is so true that we see the life of a Christian hath for it's sole conservation and food the very body and blood of Iesus Christ for if according to the ordinary maximes of things naturall we say that every thing draws it's nutriment from whence it draws its being since the food of a Christian is no other then Iesus Christ it followes by a necessary consequence that his being and life must be the same Iesus Christ. A truth great and admirable which shewes us the excellencies of the state of Christianity and teaches us how holy and perfect the life of a Christian ought to be If we further consider the same grace we shall discover a new secret in Christian life for having said that grace makes us live the life of Iesus we ought to know what his life is The life of Iesus is divinely-humane and humanely-divine He is God and man and therefore lives a life divine and a life humane As God he lives the life of God in the bosom of his Father a life of Glory Power and Majesty as man he lives the life of man in lowness humiliation in impotence in sufferings So that at the same time he is living in the bosom of his Father and dying on the Arms of the Crosse. There he raigns and governs and judges all the World here he is accused condemned and crucified At the same instant he is in the exaltation and greatness of his Majesty and in the lowness and humiliation of our humanity Such also ought the Christian life to be on the one side it is great seeing grace makes us the Children of God elevates and unites us to God makes us partakers of the proprieties and qualities of God in a word deifies us and makes us as little gods On the other side the same life is obscured dejected wholly in the spirit of humiliation and privation for grace cannot reign in the soul without operating therein annihilation death and humility Moreover the life of a Christian is exposed to temptations derided by men condemned by the world and in the greatest cherishing of God it is agitated by the cross of love God enlightens the soul by grace it is granted but it is in annihilation he upholds her but it is in confounding her he unites her to him but it is in separating her and the love it self which she enjoys unites her to God she remains separated from God as long as she remains upon earth While we are in the body we are absent from the Lord so is she at once united and separated This is the conduct of God over his Church nay if we reflect upon the highest works we shall find he puts not the ornament of grace and the foundation of her estate but in lowness his grace his gifts his spirit and his communication we are but in humiliation when he established the Sacraments which are conduit pipes whereby he conveighs his graces to his Church and into our souls He hath chosen bread water and such things as are mean little or nothing esteemed among men In the birth of the Church he took the cross for the throne of his Empire a Calvary for his seat-royall he rejected an estate by poverty sufferings and martyrdom and at this day he does the same in the regency of his Church It is true that this littleness is not now known this martyrdom is within all this holiness is hidden it appears no more to the eyes of the world as it did of old by the triumphs of Saints who became victorious and glorious in the effusion of their blood and yet notwithwanding she cannot be exempted from undergoing her humiliations her heresies and persecutions According to the proceedings of God in the conduct of his Church is likewise his carriage in the sanctification and government of our souls he leads them by the cross he retires from them he hides himself he leaves them in privations he humbles them annihilates them smites them overthrows them The perfect Christian must resolve to fight with and bear his sufferings in such manner as we have said but sufferings that are hidden to men are known to God which do glorifie him only in the sight of Angels Wherin is discovered how they are deceived who in their devotions and exercises seek resentment enjoyments content and satisfaction and would know and feel the excellency and elevations of grace I call it a deceit for Christian grace consists chiefly in privations in lowness in rigours and that is it they stand most in fear of and avoid Now as the life of Iesus begun in poverty and ended on the cross so a perfect Christian who would live a life of grace must resolve to walk amongst thornes to bear privations and sustain desertions for the cross and thornes are things proper to Christian grace and to the love of Iesus To abridge therefore the life of a Christian and all that hath been proposed let us say that the Christian to live and walk worthily according to the vocation whereto he is called must go out of himself to live in Iesus Christ his centre must be the bosome of God his life a hidden martyrdom and all his actions and sufferings must be pure and referred to the glory of God his intentions must look onely upon God his desires must be onely to please God his care onely to follow God his contentment wholly in God In brief his thoughts his designes his works must bear the Image of Iesus Christ the foundation of his being must be onely of God all to God and all for God that he may say with the Master of Christians To me to live is Christ and to die is gain THE FIFTH PART Treating of true Piety and the more particular Duties of a Christian towards Jesus Christ our Lord. CHAP. I. What Devotion is and wherein true Piety consisteth SAINT Paul proposes to his young Timothy divers admonitions to be used in the particular conduct of himself and government of his Church The first which he most recommends is piety saying Exercise thy self unto godliness as if he should say
the first operation of grace in our souls is to become servants to Iesus Christ. This service is the first estate of Christianity the first promise that we make to God by a solemn publike profession in the Church by Baptisme There we devote our selves to Iesus Christ to belong to him to depend on him and at the same time we receive and aknowledge him as our Soveraigne we adore and reverence him as our Redeemer we are united to him as to our Head Thus this state of service brings grace yea singular grace which is the first thing that God gives in his Church by Baptisme a grace which he gives with a mark and impression of his power so deeply imprinted in our souls that nothing can deface it not Hell it self Whence we see that at the same time that Iesus Christ conceives us by Baptisme and receives us into his Church as his children we enter into the state of servants and vow our selves to Iesus Christ as such So that by one and the same Sacrament we are made children of God and received his servants and consequently we are in the House of God both as sons and servants yet so as that we are his children by grace his servants by nature Now as we say that the state of subjection is essentiall to the creature and to the Christian so the same state is essentiall to the piety of Christians and therefore they who would establish themselves in piety must begin their establishment in this subjection for we must bear a relation of love and inclinations to Iesus Christ as we do of purchase and necessity To be convinced of this truth we are to observe that this state of subjection consisteth in taking Iesus Christ for the end and object of our actions we serve him we contemplate him as our Soveraign and Redeemer we do all things by a spirit of love honour and dependance on him So that this state of dependance and service is a generall Disposition wherein we perform all our actions By this Disposition they are truly Christian accomplished in the spirit of true piety and though there appear nothing outwardly either new or extraordinary in our life yet by this disposition and state of service we are more neerly Christ's who looks on us as his own raising and uniting us to himself by a reall dependance wherein consists the true spirit of piety For by the state of service we acknowledge Christ our Soveraign and King and our selves his vassals we adore him as our Redeemer and confess our selves his servants In this quality we adhere inviolably to all his will In a word we see that he is our Head and we united to him as his members In this union we live by his spirit and follow his motions in which three points consisteth solid piety and the perfection of Christianity So that we are so much the more God's and consequently the more perfect by how much we are the more abased and devested of our selves entirely depending and faithfully operating under the power and will of him who makes himself ours that we may be his and hath purchased us to himself at an inestimable rate For this cause they who exercise themselves seriously in piety begin at the same time to look upon the Son of God as the object of their life and resign themselves up to him Hence springs the daily practice of certain acts of interiour devotion which is ordinarily proposed to them that seek true piety recommended to them because they are profitable and necessary drawing the soul from it self to elevate and unite it to Iesus Christ. We shall further explain it in the ensuing Chapter But before we enter into that Discourse we are to know that we must not conceive these acts of interiour devotion to be actions meerly transcient or a simple operation of our spirit for that would be little in comparison of what God requires But we must pass further and bear in the bottom of our hearts the state wherein we propose these interior acts that must be our principall end and intention For though God onely hath power and authority to put us into this estate when and how he pleases yet because in the wayes of grace God doth ordinarily expect our consent and cooperation it is for that very reason that the soul exerciseth her self in this practice of devotion and it is upon this account that she forms to her self these interiour Acts whereby she resignes and offers up to God her heart and will So that in this exercise the christian must not content himself to form this Act and to pronounce the words but he must demand of God the grace to bear a permanent estate thereof and for his part must do his utmost endeavour to attain it In the next Chapter you have them particularly explain'd CHAP. VII Containing certain interiour acts for those souls who are desirous to be established and confirmed in true piety THE first act of interiour piety to Iesus Christ which we are to practise frequently every day is an act of honour and adoration This I place first because it is the first employment of our soul and the first duty of the creature who is obliged to honour and adore its God with so much necessity that the very Devills and damned are forced to do it it is the first act that christian Religion proposeth To form this act we must acknowledge Iesus Christ Sonne of God both God and man we must regard him as our Soveraign Lord and Redeemer as cause and principle of all our happiness We must annihilate our selves before him and humble our selves even to the bottom of our soul willingly submitting to all that he is This is called an act of adoration It contains two effects of the powers of the soul one of the understanding employ'd in considering and acknowledging Iesus Christ in his greatness and Soveraignty looking on him as the principle of all good and of all the being of nature and grace and esteeming and honouring him as such Then followes an effect of the will which humbles it self before him receives and accepts him as her God King and all and with all its strength submits wholly to his power and greatness in an act of adoration Hence we may perceive that adoration consists not onely in an esteem of God be it never so highly elevated but requires also a voluntary submission of the soul with expressions of honour interiour and exteriour He therefore who practiseth as he ought an act of adoration desireth alwayes to shew his respect by the effects As the Sonne of God is infinitely adorable he who would adore him strives daily to increase in adoration and consequently endeavours with great fidelity to subject himself more and more in will and deed to the greatness and Soveraignty of Iesus Christ. I say in will and deed for it would avail but little to say it onely with the mouth and to have in thought the
the life of Iesus after what manner he pleaseth This is a principall point of Christian piety The very mysteries of our faith acquaint us with this truth and discover unto us the designes whereby the Son of God would advance us to a participation of his Mysteries and the severall estates of his life The Son of God becoming man by incarnation takes possession of the nature of man of our bodies and of our souls by which he acquires a right to his nature to advance and appropriate it to himself after what manner he pleases as by this work of love he took humane nature upon him assuming body and soul which he appropriated to himself and elevated to all the greatness of the divinity communicating to it for ever the person being life and nature of God In like manner in the works of grace whereby his divine mysteries are honoured Iesus chooseth such souls as he may dwell in by love or after what manner he pleaseth otherwise he appropriates them to himself by his grace he advances them to adherence and union of spirit with him and by a particular indulgence establisheth them in a communication of his greatness To this end he applies and employes his power to which a Christian ought to be most vigilant and attentive that he may alwayes continue in the subjection he owes to Iesus Christ to accept receive and bear the effects of his power This Principle of truth and piety is grounded upon the common doctrine that all that Iesus Christ did he did for us and all that he is he is for us He saith the Apostle became poor for our sakes although he were rich that by his poverty we might be made rich meaning that Iesus being God became man and took upon him our meanness infirmities sufferings death the severall conditions of our life to withdraw us from our meanness enrich us with his divine graces and advance us to a participation of the severall estates of his life blessedness sanctification and salvation Hence we may take occasion to consider the greatness of Iesus he is our fulness in his annihilation in his poverty he sufficeth all for God gathereth together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth It is the greatness of his mysteries that they are capable of communication to us and can admit the sanctification of our souls as it is our glory and happiness to be able to participate of the grace estate and mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ. This is the first designe God hath upon us when the Son of God living an immortal and eternal life in the bosome of his Father took a new and mortall life in the womb of the Virgin his Mother He desired nothing so much as to give us his immortall life and to abase himself to our estate to elevate us to a participation of his greatness and the rather because as he honoured his Father by the several estates of his new life his hidden life his suffering poverty death cross obedience subjection in all the estates and mysteries of his life so he will have us to honour him in participating of the estate spirit and grace of the same mysteries For this reason in his Church and of all qualities and vocations he chooses souls and calls them to an establishment in the participation of his spirit and a communication of his new life a life of grace such as is wholly singular and proportioned to the eminence dignity and sanctity of a Christian calling All this is an effect of his divine mercies the fruit of his sufferings it is our glory to be called and elevated to this happiness as it is our duty to keep our selves in a disposition and capacity to receive and bear them according to the designes and intentions of the Son of God All those then who are desirous to live according to Christian piety must make it their main business to continue faithfull and humble in this subjection that they may be ready to go when they are called and to receive when they shall be rewarded We come now to the Dispositions whereby this estate may be attâ—ined CHAP. IX Certain dispositions necessary for the devout soul that would participate of the grace and estates of the life of Jesus Christ. THis estate of interiour piety which puts the soul into a subjection to the power of Iesus Christ and a capacity to receive and bear the graces and estates of the life of Iesus is altogether suitable and necessary for those who seek perfection as being proportioned and conformable to the designes and order that God hath established in his creatures In the creation of the visible World adorned and embellished with so many severall creatures God hath created Angels and man to contemplate so perfect a work to admire the excellencies and to honour the Authour of such miraculous productions He hath done the like in the creation of the new World that is the establishment of his Church wherein Iesus Christ chooseth souls and formeth spirits who are employed in considering the works of love operated by him upon the Earth for the salvation of mankind and honouring the Authour of so many Graces As God hath created a great number of Angels different in perfection and order and as some conceive in species also to whom he hath given severall gifts and graces as well as severall ranks in Heaven that they may honour by these diversities of estates perfections the divine qualities and severall perfections of God for the Seraphims as Thomas Aquinas affirmeth adore by estate and by grace and contemplate by the light of glory the uncreated love of God the Cherubims his wisdom the Thrones his Stability and so of the rest The eternall Word having accomplished the ineffable and adorable work of his Incarnation having finished that of our Redemption and created in this naturall World a new World that is the Church puts souls into it who by the conduct of grace are employed in consideration of the works which Iesus Christ operated on Earth And amongst the rest he hath chosen many who by their severall estates and perfections continually honour the severall estates of his life and adore his actions and perfections humanely-divine and divinely-humane This must needs be an undeniable truth for if the Angels and the Church triumphant are continually and eternally employed in admiring and adoring the life estates and Mysteries of Iesus Christ shall not her Sister in the Church Militant have the same rights employments and duties It is not to be doubted and certainly seeing that love hath obliged the Sonne of God to these lownesses and makes him ours for ever for he shall be man eternally and eternally our Iesus our head and our All it is but reason that we be alwayes his and render him perpetuall honour and homage This is he that operates in our souls this is the estate whereto many are called It
is onely expected that Christians dispose themselves to participate of this happinesse and being called thereto endeavour to correspond faithfully therewith God doth the same in the regency of his Church the Sonne of God making use of his power hath established therein severall estates orders and societies separated from the common and from one another which he consecrates and appropriates to the severall estates and Mysteries of his life Some honour his solitude and hidden life others his penance others his poverty others his obedience all adorn and beautifie the body of his Church and in the diversity of their functions and estates honour adore and imitate the severall operations and Mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ who distributes his spirit and the grace of his Mysteries to all according to what manner he pleases He doth the same in the particular Government of souls he causes and calls them to elevate and establish them in such estate as pleaseth him sometimes by sufferings sometimes by privations one while by love another by simplicity and infancy In a word he estates them as he pleases to be honoured by them one and the same spirit according to St. Paul working all things dividing to every one severally as it pleaseth him The same Apostle represents this truth under the similitude of a humane body all are members of the same body animated enlivened with the same spirit and yet they have all their several offices and functions particular and different The case is the same saith this holy Apostle in the Government of the Church which is the body of Iesus Christ whereof all christians are members though all make up but one body and are the animated onely by the spirit of Iesus yet are they called and employed to particular estates and in all there is a difference of gifts and operations but it is but one spirit and one God who does all in all they are different effects of one and the same principall cause It is the same Iesus who chooseth the souls to communicate to them the graces and divers estates of his life How happy is that christian who is called to this happiness Herein consisteth the perfection of the soul as in things naturall we say that the Creature is most perfect when it most participates of the being life and perfections of God so in the state of graces that soul is most perfect which participates most of the graces of the divers estates and qualities of the Sonne of God This grace and favour is not for every one and farre above the ordinary The Sonne of God doth not call all souls to a participation of his life nor alwayes communicates to them the spirit and graces of his Mysteries Yet the christian who would live in a solid piety and adherence to Iesus Christ and would feel the effects of his divine communications must desire this favour and earnestly demand it He must often reverence and adore the life thoughts designes Mysteries and estates of the life of Iesus He must offer himself with all his heart to the power spirit and grace enclosed in those divine Mysteries In a word he must carefully remove from his soul all hinderances and inclinations opposite to the designes and operations of the Sonne of God But above all he must continue constant in subjecting his soul to the power and will of the Sonne of God He that will practise all this must make these uses following The first is that the soul always resigne her self to the power of the Son of God than he may make in her and by her all that he will for his glory This resignation to be perfect must be grounded upon a freedom of spirit a freedom which is the true spirit of the children of God and consisteth in an estate of indifferency and independency as to all things as well in the order of nature as of grace and being subject to God onely by this freedom all things in the world are indifferent the soul remaining in a pure capacity of submitting to whatsoever the Son of God will operate in her and by her giving her self up wholly to his divine power This liberty of spirit is the principall estate and first ground of Christianity for all Christians belong to the Son of God and are left to his power One died for all saith Saint Paul that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him who died for them Teaching us that as the Son of God gave his life for us and by his excessive charity delivered himself to the ignominious death of the cross to do the will of his Father so he hath right and power to choose and consecrate us by his grace to offer us an Holocaust of sweetness and honour to the glory of his Father that as he hath been the victim of our sins we may be the victims of his love Hence it is evident that the Son of God hath power and right to put our souls into what estate it shall please him for his glory be it an estate of life or death of privation or abundance of confusion or honour and may choose out souls and advance them to the participation of the mysteries of his life to render to him particular homage and service We must then resigne our selves wholly in all things to Iesus Christ. To establish us in this disposition the liberty of spirit whereof we speak is absolutely necessary For when it hath separated us from all things nay even from our selves it puts us into an amplitude and capacity to be all that God will have us to be and to bear the effects of his grace and power And therefore the Christian who seeks to establish himself in true piety and live with fidelity must endeavour to conform himself in this liberty of spirit for it is difficult nay impossible to adhere to Iesus Christ to depend on him and faithfully to receive the operation of his grace if we are not in this liberty of spirit that is an independency as to all things This is the spirit and disposition that God requires in a Christian according to the Apostle That the spirit we have received be not a spirit of bondage but of liberty and adoption This first disposition leads us farther and advances us in the wayes of piety and puts us into a second disposition by which we accept with humility and submission all the estates and effects that the spirit of the grace of Iesus Christ shall operate in us and bear with patience and obedience whatsoever rigour and difficulty we meet with Having so received them we are also bound by this disposition to act according to the quality and extent of grace communicated to us and to live conformably to the estate whereinto the Son of God puts us We must remain firm in that subjection and liberty of spirit we speak of In this use consisteth the peace and liberty of the soul For
Christians have a new being a new life which honoureth and imitates the new life of Iesus in his holy humanity springing from this as its source and principle For as the word unites it self to our nature in the Mystery of the Incarnation replenisheth and dwells in it as in his proper body consecrates and elevates it to all the Grandeurs of his divine Filiation so the same Iesus unites himself not personally but by a new Grace and after a singular manner proper to the state of Christianity consecrates us dwels in us and advanceth us to the communication of the rights goods and greatnesse of his filiation and would have us O excesse of love to be that by grace which he is by nature which he would have not onely to be accomplished in glory but in grace not onely in Heaven but upon Earth where we are truly Sons of God and in that quality henceforward we enter into alliance with him we have right to his heritage and which is more O that we would consider it he gives us power to call God our Father to look up to him as such to relate to him in this quality in further assurance whereof he gives us his spirit This St. Paul teacheth when he saith Ye have received the spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father the same spirit it selfe beareth witnesse with our spirit that we are the children of God It is an effect of the mystery of the Incarnation and priviledge and excellency of Christianity Let us deliberate further upon it St. Iohn summing up the graces received from God in the Mystery of the Incarnation ranks this the first for it is the foundation of the rest saying To them he gave power to become sons of God If you would comprehend some part of this great favour think that as there is nothing in Divinity greater then to be the Son of God by Nature so but to be God himselfe nothing is greater then to be the Son of God by grace St. Cyprian admiring in God the title of Father sayes It is an ineffable name containing the Mysteries and Secrets hid from our spirits incomprehensible by our understanding If then to be Father in the Deity be a thing the most mysterious and ineffable that our souls can imagine by consequence to be son of such a Father is a favour and dignity incomprehensible The beloved Disciple causeth us to admire at this great benefit when he says Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God and be such in effect St. Iohn Damascene speaks to this purpose That the eternall Father sent his Son into the world to produce Children that should be such to him by Grace as Christ is unto him by Nature and therefore in pursuit of this Commission the Son of God from the time that he became the son of man hath created by his power begotten by his love and acquired by his merits and given by his Spirit many children to his Father who can breath nothing but glory to his Father and no longer live then by his Spirit and Life But to search with greater admiration into this Truth we must consider the manner by which he creates in us so divine a work We must observe that in Baptisme we not only receive grace and faith by the habituall vertues and gifts of the holy Spirt but are also marked with the Character of God received and owned as his children The manner whereby God effects this is admirable for as the Father hath sealed Jesus Christ with his Seal and made him his Son communicating to him his Essence and making him altogether equall to himself so Jesus Christ doth comunicate to us what he himself is marketh us with his seal makes us and owns us as children and makes us as it were another himself Wonder saith Saint Augustine and rejoyce brethren we are made of Christ. In pursuite of this benefit the eternall Father hath given us the Spirit of his Son which dwels in us according to the Apostle What can we think to be greater If we go further herein we shall find that we are not advanced to this admirable estate of being the children of God by any simple acceptation or by bare ceremonies but by something more reall that passeth into our souls as Saint Paul implies by these mysticall terms Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us It is not for our works saith he that the washing of regeneration and renewing of the holy Ghost that the spirit is given us by Jesus Christ and that Jesus is sent upon this design by the eternall Father three circumstances worthy great consideration To conclude the greatness of this benefit let us observe with Dionysius the Areopagite that we are advanced to this divine estate by a new birth and divine regeneration which the Son of God operates in us in the bosom of the Church our Mother to the honour of God and in imitation of his eternall generation in the bosom of God the Father CHAP. IV. Of the uses the Christians ought to make of filiall adoption whereto they are advanced by Baptism THe Truths that we have treated of are high and would require a large Discourse but that our designe being to prescribe the practice of filiall Piety we will only represent as much as is necessary to manifest what we are and what our life ought to be in conformity to so eminent an estate First then we must take notice that in the Language of the Scripture a Christian is a new Creature in Iesus and according to the word of the Son of God a man if he be a Christian must be born again of God and consequently must have a new being worthy such a birth Now according to the order that God hath established in all things we say that the action and operation must be conformable to the being Whence it follows that the state of a Christian being a holy divine estate that makes him the Son of God as truly by Grace as Jesus Christ is by Nature his actions also and life ought to be wholly divine and conformable to the state of the Son of God This is the Doctrine of the Apostle who saith Be ye followers of God as dear children This Principle granted we must see what benefits we can derive from thence The first is a contempt of this World for it is the heritage of the children of Adam condemned by a determined sentence and a day of execution appointed when by the Justice of God it shall perish in a generall Conflagration Let us then despise this heritage of Adam and seek that of the children of God Heaven or to say better God himself Say with Jesus Christ with a sound heart My Kingdom is not of this world Remember that you must keep the rank of the Sons of God
manner that we ought to observe in our actions springing from the son of God must by consequence be very like it So a Christian action should be that which is made in the spirit of God that Iesus Christ hath borne upon the Earth accomplished in the holy and perfect dispositions of the Son of God himself By this only Circumstance we may judge of the difference of our actions for all that we do without the spirit and without dispositions agreeable to an action worthy of God is to do nothing or very little such actions ordinarily proceed but from a naturrll inclination or which is worse from the instigation of our own Lusts and Love of our selves Let us farther consider this Truth which will seem hard or new to those who know not the excellency of Christianity who never regard the purposes of God who are ignorant of the mysteries of their salvation When the life and actions of a Christian are said to comprehend their perfection you must remember that the Sonne of God came into the world not onely to communicate to us his grace but to dwell in us and give us his spirit and life to give them to us not onely to justifie us and as we say to put us into the state of grace but to be in us to dwell there to be the beginning of a new life and new spirit in us and to give us dispositions proportionable to such an estate This the Apostle teaches when he sayes that the eternall Father hath put the spirit of his Sonne into our hearts and that the spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God whereby we see that being justified by the state and grace of filiation and divine adoption we live in the life and spirit of God which is made our life and spirit which is in us dwells in us governs us inlivens us and is the Principle of our Actions makes them pleasing to God supernatural and worthy of Paradise Thus the life of a Christian according to the determination of God is far above all lives a being above all beings I leave you to judge what the Actions of Christians ought to be proceeding from a principle so holy and divine You will find all the very reasonable and admire the bounty and wisdom of God in this Conduct of our souls if we will consider that the eternal word was made man that by debasing himself he might render to his Father an honour worthy of God he came upon the Earth to establish by the merit and by the spirit of his Crosse the Kingdom of God in our souls and to make us worthy to serve and honour God after a manner worthy of God For this cause he advances unto himself he consecrates our lives and actions by his Death and blood and that they may be referred worthily to the honour and glory of his Father he unites himself to us communicates to us his life his spirit and dispositions to make us capable to praise God according to his greatness which we could never do if we did not take of him and from him this power and disposition This he gives us when he dwells in us by the grace of filiation and divine adoption whereto we are advanced when we are made Christians Hence we see that Christian Actions ought to be holy perfect and divine that a Christian Life ought to be the very life of Jesus Christ living and working in him by his spirit His actions his inward dispositions must be a lively image and perfect expression of the actions and holy intention of Iesus Christ. But alas we think no more of these Truths Christians are become so blind that we may well complain and say with the ancient Philosopher That the life of man is spent either in doing evil or in doing nothing or in doing preposterously what he ought to do To undeceive our selves of these common abuses to enter farther into the knowledge of the state of the grace of Christianity and to see more evidently what we ought to be let us further remember that as Christians we are members of the Sonne of God he is our head a head that infuses life in us In this quality he hath right to live and act in us as our souls act and live in our bodies This consider'd we must say that as the essence and excellency of a Christian consisteth in his being a member of Iesus Christ so the perfection of Christian duties is that they are operated by Iesus Christ living and operating in us as his members I say not onely that we must imitate the Son of God and do all our actions in Grace that thereby they may be called Christian but also that they ought to be with the same intentions and spirit wherewith Iesus Christ did act on Earth which he communicated to his Church and to all his Our Actions ought not only to be good and reasonable but to be worthy of the Son of God our head whose members we are Therefore they must be animated by his life guided by his motions and regulated by his intentions seeing that to this end he giveth us his spirit and life to be our spirit and life and that he gives us freely abundant grace in him and by him to accomplish all our actions This is of great importance for which we shall one day render a strict account when God shall judge the uprightness of men by so extraordinary a favour Certainly he will examine and punish the ignorance the contempt and abuse of so many graces which he hath acquired for us by his travells and cross and offereth us with so much love and bounty This will appear yet more evident if we consider the common belief of all the faithfull who acknowledge that the life and actions of a perfect Christian ought to be actions of grace Let us therefore examine what the Essence and Dignity of this grace is for supposing that the life of a Christian is a life of grace we must necessarily grant that our actions by consequence ought to be conformable and correspondent to the sanctity and dignity of the grace which gives them life sanctifies them and advances them since they must be proportionable and semblable to the cause We know that the grace which sanctifies and gives life to our actions is a grace made for the Son of God that from him it flows into us that we are not replenished and enriched but from his bounty This granted our life and actions must be holy and perfect by the same sanctity and perfection which is in Iesus Christ which is lovingly communicated to and engrafted in our souls sanctifying enlivening and perfecting our life and actions When we say that this Grace comes from Iesus Christ we express in this alone the excellency and dignity of it For to know the dignity and eminency of the grace of Christianity it suffices not to say as we commonly do that it
of the gifts of God and the favours wherewith the powerful hand of the Divinity had so liberally inriched him and degraded him of all honour and put him into a condition of meanness impotence and error This goodly spirit of man or rather this man all spirit is now nothing but flesh this beautiful Soul which breath'd for nothing but Heaven entertained it self so deliciously in the knowledge of infallible Truths and was inriched with contemplation of the greatness of God as with Divine Dew and heavenly Manna after so deplorable a fall obstinately links himself to the perishable goods of this World believes in lies seeks after vanities and can no more elevate himself to God so miserable and impotent hath sinne made him O unhappiness which cannot sufficiently be bewailed Man who by the happiness of his creation had eyes to contemplate onely his Creator and converting himself wholly to him had no heart but to love him no spirit but to adhere to him after so fatall a cast wholly turn'd away from God regards nothing but himself is wholly converted to the Creature lives as a Beast onely upon the Earth and like a Beast without judgement The Apostle goes further for describing the estate whereto the sinner is reduced he declares him uncapable of the knowledge of things which are of the Spirit of God The natural man saith he receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned Hence I doubt least the wayes I intend to propose which are according to the Spirit of God appear too high or above the capacity of our spirits I confess they are so if we look upon man in the state of sin impotency and the corruption of his Nature But we shall find the contrary if we consider that the Sonne of God came into the World to relieve man after his fall to restore him those gifts with advantage which he lost to render him capable of God In brief he was made man to teach man the true way to love and serve God he gives the power having setled in his Church an inexhaustible Treasure of Graces whence all souls may draw strength in their weakness succour in their necessity and ability in the very impotency of their nature Here of Iesus man and God we are to learn the way to love and adore and to serve God from him we must have the grace to do it We must in and by Iesus operate above our strength above our being and natural power and nothing ought to seem difficult to us or impossible for him seeing he gives us his grace and spirit in abundance to accomplish it To believe this we must look back upon the designs of the Son of God in the Profusion of his gifts and graces and leasurely examine with the eye of Faith what he will operate in us by his grace and divine communications At the first view we shall see that Grace draws from us our impotency advances us above our nature gives us a new being a new life a life intire and wholly hid in God a life proper to the state of Christianity according to which all Christians ought to live The Son of God speaking to the Samaritan and in her to all the faithful makes a Discourse hereof worthy to be consider'd expressing an intention to establish his Church The houre shall come sayes he and now is wherein the true Worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him The reason he adds God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth What more powerful and clear testimony of the will of God who tries and elects Souls that worship him in spirit and truth If he himself doth choose them and call them to this new life is it not necessary that in pursuit of this election he give them grace necessary to arrive at such an estate Let us consider this passage and ponder all the words of it 1. Iesus Christ shews us that our life must be holy and severed from the creature seeing that we must serve God in Truth without amusing our selves with the vanities and things of the Earth which are nothing but lying In truth that is to say conformable to the Greatness of God and to that principle whence the Soul takes power to serve God the grace spirit and dispositions of Jesus Christ the spirit of Truth We learn further that if perfection of this life is inward pure holy and absolutely divine seeing it is and subsists in the adoration of God who as he is a Spirit pure and holy will be served and adored in Spirit 2. Iesus Christ teaches that we must wait upon him for this Grace necessary to accomplish his Commands who requiring of us a life so pure and perfect obliges himself to give us necessary Graces to arrive unto it since that without him we can do nothing of that which he teaches In brief we see how much we are obliged to require this grace to search after it to submit our selves unto it and to endeavour to become worthy of it We must not in a matter so important as this of our salvation demurre in consideration of our impotency or experience of our own incapacity but raising our selves above our selves by the spirit of Faith we must hope in him who commands nothing impossible who giveth grace abundantly to accomplish what he demands These are the first dispositions of a Christian and which those souls that have any desire to live Christianly ought first of all to learn But it happens quite contrary the understanding of men is so corrupt that they desire not these internal solid vertues nor require them of God and which is worse many think it unnecessary to possess them and that such a life as we call interiour is for few persons as if Jesus Christ speaking to the Samaritan had spoken onely to Her and not to the whole Church Others perswade themselves that it is impossible to attain them as not believing the Apostle who saith I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me a manifest error wherein many lose themselves in not sufficiently considering what they daily see by common experience set before their eyes If weakest Women Virgins and Children have had strength sufficient notwithstanding their young and tender bodies to embrace tortures almost insupportable and have by Grace been strengthned to overcome those difficulties why should not we believe also that abandoning our selves to the power and conduct of Grace and becoming faithful to the designs of God we may have sufficient grace and capacity to acquire these vertues If by the help of grace they can attain strength of body to support the rigours of a penitent life wherefore by favour of the same grace may not we arrive to the possession of that true vertue wherein a
be deceived by this way our spirits being too feeble this way too eminent and that it occasions a perpetuall combate in the spirit As it is troublesome to a man to walk in darkness so it is hard for the soul to go this way of Faith which is obscure and hidden But if we would learn it well we must say the contrary all other wayes are uncertain and deceitfull vertue alone is infallible we shall never be deceived if we stick to it It were to have a mean esteem of Gods graces and to be ignorant of the Principles of our salvation to believe that the faith God hath given us to conduct us is capable of loosing us Let us remember that God hath given us the light of faith to guide our reason and that our reason must submit thereunto and in respect of Faith be annihilated as Saint Paul saith We walk by faith not by sight meaning that to live Christianly we must let our reason be guided by faith not faith by reason wherein we see the designes of God in the rule of our souls the necessity of our walking by the light of this torch or according to the ordinary manner of speech see how necessary it is for him that will live a perfect Christian to follow onely the light of faith and to learn to make use of Evangelicall truth If at any time the souls who take this way are deceived it is in that they go out of it and being perswaded by the Devil or self-love or the vanity of the humane spirit which esteems it self in every thing withdraw themselves from the conduct of faith to follow that of humane prudence choosing to be guided by the rules of the flesh and the spirit of worldly vanity rather then by the maxims of Iesus Christ and the spirit of heavenly truth Thus indeed they find themselves deceived and fall into misfortunes not for having taken this way of faith but for having quitted it and adhered to humane prudence and the light of reason which like an ignis fatuus will lead us out of the way unless we be aided by a supernaturall force and guided by a more sure light such as is this of faith But to the soul that is faithfull applying her self to the truths of Faith and Maxims of Christianity that seeks God with simplicity and humility there must necessarily arrive great profit and advantage in christian perfection We must not therefore condemn this way and reject it as too high too difficult and too painfull for it is the way that the Sonne of God himself hath left to his Church and commanded all his children But on the contrary we must teach it every one accommodating our selves to their several capacities and giving them all the means to pursue it without going out of it least they be deceived If we find here any difficulty it is in our selves There are two things in man which hinder his progress this way one is esteem of himself and of his own spirit the other is the Love that he bears himself and for his own sake to the Creatures To pursue this way and to make use of Faith he must go out of himself and renounce his own spirit and raise himself above all Creatures to adhere to truth to believe and to make use of what he did believe he must renounce his judgement his reason and his sense and annihilate them If our reason sense and judgement repugne the truth proposed to our belief we must quit our reason and our sense to unite our selves to the truth If for instance it is proposed that the uncreated eternall word become man that God died reason and sense oppose this truth Reason cannot comprehend that the eternall God should make himself subject to Time the immortall submit himself to Death yet to believe this our Will moved by grace notwithstanding the opposition of reason and sense must say I will believe and adhere to the truth proposed The will adhering hereto commands reason and judgement which obeying her believe what she proposes the understanding which useth to command and be free renders it self captive and obedient annihilating its own thoughts and reason that so it may adhere to the truth proposed and form an act of Faith Thus we are to understand that of Saint Paul bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. By faith the understanding which useth to command is made captive and obedient to the Will therefore the soul in the practise of Faith goes out of her selfe and no more obeys her judgement or sense she no more regards her self but the truth onely which she embraces as her object adhering and uniting her self thereto Thus by Faith the soul is elevated above her self to be tyed and united to the eternall and infallible truth revealed and proposed to her This well considered will shew us the excellency and dignity of faith by which knowledge we shall learn how much we are to esteem the state of christianity in generall and the life of a christian in particular seeing that according to Gods designes and the grace of Iesus Christ the christian as christian must live and be guided onely by the spirit of truth and light of faith which being divine and supernaturall drawes us out of our selves to unite and tye us to God who is truth We shall moreover see by what hath been said that faith is not what we think it consists not in great learning in many reasons and severall Arguments on the contrary it is for the simple and for those who can go out of themselves who can annihilate themselves in their reason and quitting the regard of themselves and other creatures adhere and follow the truth of faith Therefore it is said commonly that the learned and wise of the world who have most prudence most reason the most solid judgement and capacity of spirit have likewise most opposition to faith for they are lesse able to go out of themselves to annihilate their own spirits and judgements Thus Iesus Christ after he had summed up the truths of Heaven and described the contentments of the glory of the just concludes with an Enthusiasme of truth I thank thee O Father saith he Lord of Heaven and Earth because thou hast hid these things these truths from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes to the humble and meek Which shews that the knowledge of truth and of the spirit of faith is a gift of God that God gives it to the humble and little ones that to adhere to it we must humble and abase our selves In a word to make use of the truth and faith conceived we must go out of our selves and out of esteem of our selves Let us practise this for it is our principall design To make use of faith and truths conceived we must first consider what faith proposes but we must consider it barely and simply without any discourse upon it we
and the reverence we should bear to this estate for the Sonne of God having chosen the Crosse and sufferings and having united to his divine person by his incarnation meanness and infirmities and adversities of humane life he hath made them divine and ennobled them So that we must regard them much more for the dignity which they receive from Iesus Christ and to speak properly they are the sufferings of Iesus Christ for we are united to him we are members of his body flesh of his flesh bone of his bone and by reason of this unity they are no more our sufferings then the sufferings of Iesus seeing they are more to Iesus then to our selves Whence Saint Paul saith as the sufferings of Christ abound in you so our consolation abounds by Iesus Christ. The Apostle highly advancing the sufferings of Christianity calls them the sufferings of Iesus St. Peter speaks in the same manner Rejoyce in as much as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings And therefore when we see all that is in this World all the adversities and vicissitudes we must not passe them over indifferently or as men without grace and vertue stop at our own resentments and loose our selves in our weakness and naturall passions but we must lift up our eyes and thoughts to the consideration of Catholick truths and making use of the light of Faith endeavour to use all things according to the manner God requires and to the power he hath given us If we suffer let us not suffer as slaves and criminalls but as the Children and true Servants of God Let us suffer with esteem and in the spirit of Christianity a spirit holy and divine a spirit powerfull and couragious and which onely belongs to the chosen of God and to his greatest friends Hence the Apostle summing up the graces that the new Christians had received of God puts sufferings in the first place and accounts them as a singular favour He hath given you saith he not onely to believe on him but to suffer for him thereby shewing that it is a benefit of God to be called to the state of sufferings and to know how to make use thereof In the view of these truths let us beg of the Sonne of God part of his spirit of the Crosse and sufferings and his grace to support us under them that we may bear them with the spirit with joy and the grace of Christianity let us say with Saint Paul and often repeat this Prayer in our heart That the Lord would prepare our hearts to the love of God and to the patience of Iesus Christ. CHAP. XIV That we must suffer out of a zeal to the Iustice of God WE suffer in the wayes of sinners and for the zeal of Iustice which is the third Disposition that we have proposed when we enter into the zeal of God which brings him to do justice upon sin and that in all things we exercise upon our selves the judgement that God exerciseth therein in bearing in our hearts a true desire and an effectuall will to submit to the justice of God before whom we are sinners before whom we have offended so many ways By this Disposition the perfect Christian must undergo all sorts of pains and sufferings and regard the adversities and inconveniencies of humane life as effects of God's Iustice on him as a sinner whereby he would destroy sin in him and root out imperfections With this spirit and Disposition he must endure all naturall incommodities as cold heat poverty sickness afflictions and such accidents which are the attendants of our life regarding and bearing them with this zeal to the Iustice of God upon sin This thought if it be solid and well settled in the soul of a perfect Christian will make all pain sweet and easie For what can we suffer but we deserve much more if we weigh our afflictions our sufferings travails and adversities with the number of our sins Who will not see the deformity and weight of our sins and how much they surpass the rigour and weight of our sufferings If we consider the hate God bears to sin and to sinners by reason of sin who will not confess that our crimes are much greater then our pains that amongst our afflictions and sufferings even the greatest and most insupportable the mercy of God appears more then his justice What more manifest example of Gods hatred against a sinner then the rigour wherewith the divine justice which is alwayes equitable punished sin in Iesus Christ And if the eternall Father as the Prophet saith so rigorously chastised his Son for the sins of his people what should he not do to us If the Son of God who is holiness it self sanctity uncreated and incarnate becoming a pledge and offering for our sins was subjected not onely to our miseries and naturall infirmities which are great but to adversities afflictions poverty contempt accusations ignominy even to the rigour of the cross what ought we to suffer who are sinners and objects of the hatred and justice of God If this be done to the green wood what will be done to the dry If the Sonne of God who is the eternall and true wisdom chose this estate voluntarily subjected himself to all miseries incited by zeal to the glory of his Father and to satisfie divine Iustice what ought not we to do what pains and rigours should not we embrace who are the guilty to appease this angry God to satisfie and allay his provoked wrath to restore to glory what we have ravish'd from him Let us enter into this disposition and zeal of submitting our selves to the stroke of Gods Iustice and we shall see all things will be easie to indure we shall not complain whatever befalls us whatsoever is done unto us we shall not take it as a wrong nothing will appear harsh unto us nothing insupportable the quality of sinners and multitude of our offences will tell us that we deserve more we shall bless God for the favour he does us in giving us the meanes to honour him by our sufferings The Christian therefore must have a care to bear all adversities all changes of this life all sorts of afflictions losses and misfortunes yea all incommodities and naturall vexations of humane life with an intention to glorifie God to submit to divine Iustice against sin O how great must be the courage of a Christian how invincible his constancy in all changes and misfortunes if he professeth this zeal of God if he be animated with the hatred God beares to sin How easie would all things appear if in them we had no intent but to act and suffer onely to please God with a full resignation of our selves in all things to his divine conduct To facilitate this disposition and make it more generall we must remember that the Wisdom of God rules all this great World and hath a generall and particular superintendency over all things Nothing
can no way profit us because as men and sinners and the children of Adam we are subject to all the miseries of nature we are condemned to eat our bread in the sweat of our brows and undergo all the maledictions of God and we know that all the evils incident to nature and that happen to us in the course of our life are but the guerdon of our crimes the portion of man and the effect of sin wherein we are born So that these evills deserve not that God should regard them of themselves as being incapable to satisfie God's Iustice were it not that the Sonne of God making himself man and charging himself with our nature with all our infirmities hath sanctified them in his person and in his use of them So that bearing them in his spirit we bear them with blessing and happiness since that when he was made a sacrifice for our sins and became a propitiation to appease the wrath of God for our offences he suffered the pain of death due to sin whereby it was blessed and sanctified and by an effect worthy his bounty he would that the sufferings of men which were but the effects and punishments of sin should merit grace and find acceptation when we support them in his spirit and in his divine dispositions This St. Paul teaches saying Ye know the grace of our Lord Iesus Christ that though he was rich yet for our sakes he became poor that you through his poverty might be made rich For the Sonne of God making himself man is subject to our necessities and labours that in our labours and necessities we might be made rich in good works in patience and in the spirit of Repentance When therefore we consider the sufferrings of this life and all the humiliations and disgraces that may befall us we must look upon them two wayes First As an effect and punishment of sin Secondly As the spirit of Iesus and as sanctified and made divine in his sacred person The first are not profitable nor are they proper but for the wicked who are in chastisements and sufferings by way of Iustice suffering what they have merited But the second are full of blessedness and happiness for it is in them and by them that Iesus Christ sanctifies us that he dwells in us and establishes in our souls the works of grace If ye be reproached for the name of Christ happy are ye for the spirit of glory and of God resteth on you Words which tell us the spirit of Iesus Christ his grace and glory inhabit in souls who suffer for love of him The Christian therefore that suffers must take heed to this vertue that he suffer not as a criminall that is by necessity and force but as a Christian and in necessary dispositions For since God hath given a blessing to sufferings and by a mercy spring from these sufferings of Iesus Christ we may profit by the disadvantages of this World we must not unprofitably let slip the occasions nor indifferently passe over the necessity pains and severall estates of this life but make profit thereof seeing God will have it so and that he gives us power to do so For this reason must we endeavour to bear them in the spirit and in the blessing that Iesus Christ hath given them and according to the use he would have us to make of them The Christian that lives in this care and vigilance may hope for the recompence of Heaven and having gone through the combate of this life which to the good is but a continuall Martyrdom may say with Saint Paul I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the Faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Iudge shall give me at that day In fine the most assured mark we have of the perfection of a soul is sufferings which are continual and abundant to the just and if it be lawfull to take any Argument of our salvation or any sign of our election it is in sufferings and in the manner of bearing them So the Sonne of God calls those happy that suffer for his sake and for his glory and we may say of such souls as Saul said of David when seeing him so patient in the greatest violence of his afflictions he cryed out with teares Now I know for certain that thou shalt be surely King and that the Kingdom of Israel shall be established in thy hand We may say the same of a patient Christian but let us leave him in this hope and propose to him some entertainments of Piety CHAP. XVI The Abridgement of the fourth part teaching of Christian grace CHrist saith we are all ingraffed in him as the scien is in the Vine-stock we are bone of his bone flesh of his flesh as the Apostle sayes for we are his body we are in him and with him This truth alone shews how much we are obliged to live holily and perfectly to be regulated in our actions in our exteriour modest and holy being united to Iesus Christ our life must be an expression of the life of Iesus and as Iesus being the Son of God by nature is the Image of his Father so a Christian being the child of God by grace must be the Image of the same Iesus Christ an Image so perfect and divine as cannot be fully expressed For on the one side the life of a perfect Christian is a life hid from the eyes of man spirituall and invisible and therefore infinitely remov'd from the capacity of the children of Adam who are materiall and as the Apostle saith carnall and animal On the other side this life is a life of grace a divine life a life of God in man a life full of secrets operated by God in the depth of the soul. Our weak nature hath not termes proportionable to the greatness and Majesty of divine things and therefore all that we can say of the state of Christianity of grace and of the life of a perfect Christian doth but derogate from and deface the value of this work which cannot appear in its lustre but to their eyes who have the true light of Heaven nor can be conceived or comprehended but by souls that are chosen of God We must notwithstanding draw the last lines of our Christian image and lightly passing over what hath been said to sweeten that which appeares either too high or too harsh that so we may benefit those who will see things in perspective and superficially we must also fix our eyes and thoughts upon Christian grace which will make us apprehend the truth of what hath been proposed and if we can understand it will cause us to admire the indulgence and communications of God who out of the excess of his love the more advanceth men and sinners the more they were debased by the greatness of their ingratitude that grace might superabound
worthy to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing The Earth and all the creatures of the Universe do the like and present themselves before Iesus declare him their Soveraign and protest obedience and service to him I heard saith Saint Iohn every creature which is in Heaven and on the Earth and such as are in the Sea and all that are in them heard I saying Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sits upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever Let us do the same and from the bottom of our hearts say Amen let us adore Iesus Christ in his greatness and acknowledging his Soveraignty live in true subjection to his divine conduct The Continuation CHAP. V. Of the Motives which oblige us to belong to Jesus and to serve him by true piety OF all the Mysteries of our salvation that which ought most humbly to subject us to the will and power of Iesus Christ is the work of our Redemption for in this Mystery of love and mercy Iesus is our Redeemer we are his Purchase and have no longer Right either to our selves or to any creature Ye are not your own saith St. Paul for ye are bought with a price meaning we are Christ's who hath bought us with his most ineffably precious blood But the better to understand this sublime mystery let us derive it from its very source We are then to consider that by the sin of our first parents we should all have perished in him as guilty with him all nature should have been extinct by his sin for from his first offence he ought to bear the execution of the Decree pronounced against him by the mouth of God in these words In the day that thou shalt eat thereof thou shalt surely die And doubtless divine Iustice had annihilated him and in him humane nature and all creatures had perished with the Sinner if the eternall Father beholding his Son designed for the reparation of this offence had not repress'd the rigour of his Iustice. The Father out of the love he bore his Son suspended the execution of this Decree he saved the offender mercy triumphed over justice he granted this sinful man life and the world to live in and consequently humane nature and the world it self which for this sin should have been destroyed were preserved onely in consideration of Iesus Christ for his sake the eternall Father took compassion on us From this first Consideration is easily inferr'd that we owe unto the Son of God all that we are and all that we have and therefore we are as often his as there are moments in our life and as often as we receive any benefit from this bountifull hand of God and therefore all these rights which are innumerable ought to be so many tyes to unite us indissolubly to Iesus Christ. But if we dive further into the contemplation of these truths we shall find that by sin we belong to the Devil we have granted him that right which God by Creation gave us over the creatures we have as it were by sin made over our selves to him Thus by voluntary offence Man who should have commanded the World becomes a slave to the Devill and sels himself to sin I am carnall sold under sin saith St. Paul in the name of all sinners In this quality the Devill hath all manner of right and power over us and assuredly would exercise his malice against us if the divine goodness did not restrain him He would make us even now feel the same rigours which he exerciseth over the damned and dispose of us at his pleasure as he doth of souls eternally cursed of God were it not that Iesus Christ by his death hath forc'd us out of this captivity and devested the Devill of all right and power over us He hath blotted out the hand-writing of Ordinances against us saith St. Paul and taken it out of the way nailing it to the Crosse. Thus the Sonne of God delivering us from this captivity makes us his Captives acquiring by his blood and death a new right and power over us which he will use not with rigour and justice but with love and mercy the state of grace and spirit of piety having nothing but sweetness and indulgence He hath delivered us saith the Apostle from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son For the power of Iesus is all in love and dissolves it self into dearness What Christian seeing so much sweetness will not resign himself to the excess of this goodness to the power of this love To conceive more fully the effects of the grace of the Sonne of God and his rights to us by redemption observe that by the conduct of God and according to the merit of our offences so soon as man is in sin and withdrawes himself from the order and end that God hath prefix'd and proposed to him he is nothing but the object of divine justice unworthy of any favour from Heaven Heaven Earth and Hell bandy against him God is obliged onely to promote the punishment of sin by malediction blasphemy damnation and hell If God stay the stroke of his Iustice if he hath yet some reserve of mercy for this miserable sinner if he suffer him to live and preserve him out of an expectation of his penitence that so he may escape hell it is by Iesus Christ and onely for his sake We must then acknowledge that a sinner owes to Iesus Christ all the motions of his life all the happiness of his soul all the good which may befall him in Heaven or Earth O how many obligations have we then even as many as there are moments as many as we have thoughts as many as we have received benefits from time to time so many rights hath Iesus Christ to our souls so many times do we belong to him Who can number these wonders Can there be any thing in nature able to break these bonds and separate us from Iesus Let us dive yet a little further into this consideration by an examination of particulars let us see how by daily sins we separate our selves from God and shaking off the obedience we owe him become slaves to sin He that sins is a slave to sin saith Iesus Christ so that the sinner by a deplorable blindness withdrawing himself from the sweetness of the Kingdom of the Sonne of God subjects himself to the power of sin which would infallibly exercise its rigour and Tyranny over him if Iesus Christ by his mercy did not suppress its malignity For as sin ruling over the rebellious Angels subjected them to its malice and rigour causing those Angels of light to be to all eternity Angels of darkness and malediction So the sinner from the time he offended should be abandoned to the same Tyranny and left to the fury of sinne which would precipitate him into
and heart of man which are great and worthy himself as being a creature he hath consecrated by his precious blood and redeemed by his death and Crosse. If there are intentions and designes upon us as we must not doubt but there are and such as are of great importance yet unknown to us is it not reason we follow them and consequently are we not obliged to annihilate all our own desires and intentions to bind and subject our selves solely to the desires and intentions of the Son of God who vouchsafes to think of us and entertain himself in forming designes upon us our actions and all the motions of our life This is it we endeavour to satisfie when we form this act of purity or unity of intention This also shewes how unprofitable and superfluous their employment is who fill their hearts with variety of intentions and perplex themselves with multiplicity of thoughts who conceive desires and form designes sometimes one way sometimes another though upon occasions in appearance good and profitable since they do onely what pleases themselves But according to the Principles of Christianity it were better they kept themselves to this unity and annihilated all that is of themselves to be onely in the intentions and designes of Iesus Christ. The Christian therefore ought often to renew this purity of intention he ought to adore all the designes of Iesus Christ upon him and all his divine intentions he must resign himself thereto and protest never to follow any other holding it for a maxime that we shall not arrive at perfection nor go to God by the strength of humane reason or following our own desires and inclinations but by submitting our spirit to the conduct of Iesus by a faithfull and sincere adherence to his designes and loving dispositions This considered we shall know more and more the truth of what was proposed from the beginning that true piety consisteth in adherence to and a resignation of the soul to Iesus But we are now to examine the effects of this adherence CHAP. VIII That an adherence to Jesus Christ by true Piety makes us partakers of the severall conditions of his life THe adherence and dependance of Christians upon the Sonne of God by the first grounds and principles of Christianity and by the first duty which they profess in the state of grace obliges them to a holy and pure life since that as the Apostle saith He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit that is to say he must be of the same spirit with God and doubtless if they oppose not the designes of Iesus Christ upon them this adherence will advance them to a solid permanent estate of perfect piety and establish them in a true Christian perfection This may be reduced to three heads The first is a subjection of the soul to the designes spirit and operations of Iesus Christ a subjection that amounts to a capacity and amplitude and such as makes the soul capable to receive the communications of God to bear the effects of his grace and to enter into a participation of the Estates and Mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ. The second effect puts the soul into a purity of regard and love which makes her vigilant and faithfull to do and desire nothing but the honour of Iesus Christ to regard nothing but his pleasure and glory so as to have no eyes but for Iesus no more life but what is consecrated to the honour of his Soveraignty and divine actions This adherence to and dependance on the Sonne of God raiseth in a Christian a true imitation of his life and divine vertues to such a degree of perfection that he becomes a lively representation and image of Iesus Of these three effects we must speak particularly for herein consisteth the perfection of true and Christian piety We begin with the first The subjection which by this adherence to the Son of God is begotten in us represents two things the power he hath over us and the capacity we are in to bear the effects of his power The power which Iesus Christ hath over us is a particular power which he acquires by the mystery of the Incarnation and by all the states moments of his life a power that gives him a double right to do in us and with us what ever he pleases a power from which he imprints in the centre of our souls the time that we were first made Christians an eternall and indispensable power In a word it is a power which he establish'd by the Sacraments and left to the Church For if we consider them we shall find that besides the graces which they communicate to us they have other extraordinary effects expressing the power Christ assumes over us For instance Baptisme gives us grace and blots out all sin in us but withall put us into a condition of service to the Son of God and imprints in our souls a character of subjection to the divine power a character never to be defaced in honour of the estate of subjection and service which the Son of God underwent by the incarnation becoming man and a servant subjecting himself to the Father he was always and shall be for ever equal and coeternal with the Father and in honour of the gift which the eternall Father makes us of his Son by the incarnation and union of the Word with humanity and the life of God in man and of man in God The same Son of God instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist wherein he gives and unites himself to us that he may live in us and we in him By this way of love and union he takes power over us to live and operate in us all that he pleases and shews the power that he hath over our souls to establish therein continually his designs to glorify himself thereby and please himself in them In pursuit of this power he puts us into an estate of subjection yet such as gives us a capacity to rceive and to bear in us the force of his love and of all the effects of the life grace and mysteries of Iesus Christ and to receive them according to what manner and time he shall please to communicate them The Son of God desireth nothing so much as to communicate to us liberally his graces and the many favours he hath obtained for us and merited by his life and sufferings his principall design being to advance us to a participation of the severall estates of his life All he did on earth all his operations in the world were for our sakes referring also to our good and advancement all the greatness of his being the power of his spirit and merits of his life so good is he and so full of mercy Now if the goodness and designs of the Son of God towards Christians be such is it not reason they continue in this subjection and be faithfull and vigilant to receive and bear the effects and estates of