wishes and desires for nothing befalls us more agreeably and to our harts-content then what is given without the expense of so much as a wish now what must that needs be which forestals all kind of expectancy what wil that be which could not so much as enter into our thought such a one is this benefit and unexpected Sacrament of our redemption which if any one before it was intimated to us had begd to be done after the manner it is done his prayers would have been thought blasphemy his hope a mad rashnes his wish a sacrilegious wil his fancy impiety An unexpected guift is most grateful what wil that be which was never so much as conceyted thy beneficence indulgently granted what our indigency fancyd impossible But above all the frontispice and inscription of love which this benefit carryes engraven that being the prizer and taxer of guifts doth most affect me all guifts are testimonials and credentials of love what more creditable then this Guifts are not rated according to their bulk but the remonstrance of love that accompanies them This is an immense favour which that it may stand in the rank of benefits not of disgraces it carryes in its front in capital letters the immense love of God O Lord if I be endebted to thee whatsoever I am for my creation what shal I owe thee for thy love I acknowledg my self to owe more then my self yea as much more as thy greatnes exceeds my nothing thou who gavest thy self to me in thy nativity in thy life in thy death in thy resurrection and lastly in that sacred banquet of thy most holy body Effect that whatsoever was thine by creation and thou repairedst by redemption I may make it all thine by love I were not able to make condigne recompense for the least of thy benefits though by way of thāksgiving I should endure all the paines of hell for all eternity the reason is because it proceeds from the infitude of thy love which infinitly exceeds any infinity of recompense from creatures what then shal I be able to do for so many those so signal and chiefly for this in which thy boundles charity reflects more perspicuously then do the sun-beames The IV. Chapter How deservedly God is to be loved and chiefly for himself I Wil sum up the titles by which thou most justly exacts my love and the delinquencies of my tepidity and ingratitude I ought with all ardency to love thee o most amiable Lord both because thou art good and because thou art loving both because thou art a benefactour and my benefactour both because thou art my maker a patient endurer of my imperfections God is so good and beautiful in himself that though he had not made us the object of his love nor the subject of his beneficence nor the issue of his creation yet he were to beloved above all lovers benefactours and Creators whatsoever yea although he should hate us and be injurious on our behalf for that bottomles Ocean of goodnes beauty would expiate any injury whatsoever and much more effectually then doth beneficence If God had beheld thee hereto fore as an object of hatred and being at enmity had offended and sought revenge wouldst thou not pardon and even love him he making so large satisfaction by so many benefits so far as not to spare his own son but give him up to death suffering a privation of that the absence whereof causeth the greatest grief one must pardon an injury in him who is beneficial for the force of a benefit ought to extinguish revenge and anger but Gods previous merits being so great he deserves more then pardon If then his beneficence would suffice to clear him of alinjuriousnes much more would his goodnes the cause of beneficence it being more noble and sufficiently effectual to make amends for all losses and injuries sustaind by him Gods goodnes is greater then his beneficence because this flowes from that and effects rather fall short of their cause then otherwise One said of an ill deserving man I have receivd no good from thee but much harm and yet for all that I cannot but love thee O true goodnes let me rather say of thee then thy image of clay I cannot but love thee although I should receive no good from thee but much evil what then shal I say now when thou lovest me without meane and art beneficial above measure We sometimes love men whom we never saw nor heard off nor they us nor do they rank us in the legend of their love but we affect them merely for the report of their honesty we could take content in their conversation rejoyce at their sight and honour the very memory of them can the goodnes of God be unworthy of that which a mere humane goodnes claymes as its due A mans honesty may be such as to deserve love without any obligation of piety he not being our parent without any obligation of thankfulnes he not being our benefactour without any obligation of love he not loving us at all and shal not the authority of the divine goodnes suffice of it self to the same effect who is not moved with some sense of benevolence towards Ionathas for the loyalty of his friendship notwithstanding the emulation of his Fathers kingdome or towards David for his clemency in sparing the life of his enemy Saul though it had purchased him no les then a good empyre who hath not some affection for Iudas Machabaeus for his singular love towards his law and country and it is not any allyance with them or other particular interest but mere vertue that gaines this good wil. Sum up into one man the perfections of all others and suppose him composed all of miracles let him have the wisdome of Salomon the fortitude of Sampson the beauty of Absolon the fidelity of Ionathas the meeknes of David the fortune of Iosue and as loving towards his people as Moyses who would not be ambitious of that mans friendship or covet once at least to treat and converse with him of how dul a rellish would that man be thought who did not take gust in his acquaintance even prescinding from all hopes of gain o immense God thou art an aggregate of all good things and the total sum of all goodnes why do not we love thee and aspire to thy familiarity o Lord he that loves not thee upon the mere score of thy goodnes how ill-rellished is he how baseminded how unwise he that admires not it alone to the full how ridiculous let us suppose our selves created independently of God and that we should hear of him as of one that ruld in another world what we now believe who would not covet to have such a God who would not admire and love his goodnes and carriage towards the men of that his world whose happines we might wel envy his goodnes then is not one whit the les for his being Creatour neyther ought
thou wilt daily perish in them without end Settle it upon things eternal that thou mayst live happily for all eternity and contentedly in this interim till it commence Quit thy self of all love of corruptible things and thou shalt quit thy self of al the miseries which befall man Thou who seekest to be happy by loving why dost thou love those things which by merely loving them render thee miserable love him rather who will make thee fortunate even among the misfortunes of this life Why dost thou love those goods whose fruition makes thee evil whose desire makes thee unhappy why dost thou love men whose non-correspondence makes thee angry whose correspondence ridiculous and effeminate Fix rather thy love upon God whose desire wil make thee good whose fruition wil make thee happy Love not those beauties which deforme thee but love him whose love wil render thee beautiful It is a great fondnes to love those goods the sole love wherof deprives thee worthily of their possession and not to love that good which is only to be enjoyd by love The goods which thou lovest are not thine but thou theirs wherfore thou art in want of them God being beloved by thee becomes thine whom if thou lovest thou canst not want only wantest him when thou dost not love him by not bestowing thy love upon other things God in himself bestowes them upon thee Why dost thou love a good which is needy of another good not that which abounds with all goods when a good is loved which needs another good the misery is augmented not the want diminished All the goods of this world are necessitous none of them is all-sufficient by it self but requires the adjunction of another love that good which is so good of himself as to be indigent of no other good All good things are good by goodnes and consequently all stand in need of it to make them good Goodnes sufficeth of it self and requires no additional consort if thou lovest it thou wilt both be good and happy love him alone who alone is all things Do not love those goods which covet not to be loved by thee but love him whom all things covet to love thy Creator who both loves thee and covets to be loved by thee and created all good things for thy sake It is a kind of absurd stolidity not to love God who covets to be loved by thee and to love a piece of clay which hath no such resentment Why art thou so inquisitive after what may please thy eye and delight thy pallat and art so insensible of what doth perfect thy wil Love is to be squard out only according to the rule of God and therfore it is to be regulated by no other line nor doth it acquiesce in any thing else The shoe of Golias wil never exactly fit the foot of Zacchaeus Love is the first guift to whom is it due but to the first good and prime benefactor love is a guift by it self on whom is it to be bestowd but on him who is good by himself love is a guift by its own nature to whom is it to be offerd but to him who is good by his own nature love is a guift which is the source of all other guifts to whom is it rather to be consecrated then to that essence of good which is the source of all essences Love of it self without the access of other guifts is acceptable and others without it are little pleasing to whom doth it square better then to God who of himself is amiable pleasing and without him nothing must be pleasing o Lord how can I love thee worthily since I cannot serve thee worthily I being not able to afford thee any competent service All things are thine and whatsoever I have it is from thee becoming as it were a servant to me Thou who lovest me as much as thou artable grant that I may love thee more then I am able The X. Chapter That self love must be rooted out TO the end thou mayst love and honour God as it behooves thee it is not enough not to love thy self and the world but thou must hate thy self and esteem thy self the meanest of creatures an obiect provoking all their hatred When a ship sayles too much on one side the mariners ballast it to the other Thou doatedst on thy self in an extremity of love now thou must change it into an extremity of hatred To be able to improve ones leap to the best he must go back some paces and take his race from a further distance to be able to approach God with a more impetuous love yea to be able to love thy self truly and rationally thou must gather force from self disdaign A racer is so much nigher the goal the further he leaves the stand behind him and thou shalt approach the nigher to God the further thou recedest from thy self Thou must depart from thy self to come to God the final end conclusion of all things Thou hast no greater opposite then thy self thou must be at a deadly enmity with thy self because thou art more then a deadly enemy to thy self thou art more offensive to thy self then all the world besides We resent an affront more feelingly at the hands of a friend then of a stranger because it happens beyond expectation and wil sound more ill-favourdly relish more rankly of hatred that thou shouldst be thy own undoer who oughtst to be furthest from any such thought We take it ill if we suffer any bodily hurt from an enemy worse if from a friend of whom we expected a protection how can we brook it patiently if our soul be endomaged and that by our selves and our own exorbitances it would vex us to the hart to have our bodies enslaved though to a great Prince or potentate and we have no difficulty at all to enslave our mind to a vulgar creature or base dung when we are passionately troubled for any affront or injury or other loss O what a burden and discredit are we to our selves shame and discred it follow those properly that do amiss trouble and burdensomenes those that suffer both these miseries attend our condition we are evil towards our selves and we suffer evil from our selves we are a misery to our selves and unmerciful violent and violated provd and base-minded O how pittifully pittiles mercifully merciles are we to our selves when we soothingly compassionate our follies and take not revenge upon them Commiseration and self love in such a case is all one as if out of compassion one should cherish a frozen snake in his bosome which being revived will kill the benefactour with its poysonous sting Most evident it is that in all reason we ought to carry a greater spite and deadlier feud to our selves then all our enemies for as much as concerns self-affection the les it makes thee regard the glory of God and comply with his holy wil and seek the advance
although they be ownd by most grave Doctours they are all ridiculous in order to express it and they destroy themselves and he will shew himself to be ridiculous who hopes to express himself competently by them I am afraid o Lord least while I go thus to work to prayse thy goodnes I may be thought to jeer and deride Would not one that took upon him to set forth in magnifying words the wisdome of Salomon be judged to scof if he should say so great is the wisdome of Salomon that the lame-handed can not describe it nor the dumb utter it nor the distracted make a true estimate of its greatnes if this commendatory be thought derision these other comparisons in respect of thy goodnes are much les to the purpose in order to whose expression each creature is lame dumb and senslesly foolish O Lord my desire is to love thee in the simplicity of my ignorance I will brook it patiently if I do not clearly understand how thou art which is not possible for me to do in this life and although I can conceive nothing worthy of thy goodnes for as much as my conceptions of it are obscure incongruous yet I solace my self in this that thy goodnes is too great ever to be equalized by love I solace my self o Lord that although thou hadst not created us nor been beneficial to us nor made us the object of thy love but hatred as my deserts at least exacted yea although it were impossible for thee to be beneficial and repugnant to thy nature to love us as thou dost nevertheles by reason of thy perfection and goodnes and its matchles worth no body could love thee to the ful Although all the leaves of the trees and piles of grass all the sands of the sea and motes of the sun were all harts yea although they were so many wils of burning Seraphins yea further though all these and all other possible creatures were each one a Hierarchy of Seraphins whose love at each instant redoubled it self through all eternity all this love of them all would be as nothing in recompense of thy goodnes nay it would blush to appear in its presence neyther is my meaning that it would love thee congruously for the whole extent of thy goodnes but not so much as for thy sole patience wherewith thou toleratest me not only while I so heynously offend thee but am so defectuously languid and remiss in loving thee so great a good But in this also I solace my self that though thou art not sufficiently loved neyther canst thou be sufficiently loved by creatures Accept o Lord for my share a smal pittance of love in wish and desire I offer up to thee all the love of all creatures even of those that are as yet but possible sumd up into one oblation I my self alone would for each instant have all that their love which wil actuate them through all eternity and though I were thus furnishd yet stil should I have cause of shame and confusion Pardon pardon me I most humbly beseech thee great Lord nor resent these my slender votes and desires as affronts put upon thee but let my infirmity and thy greatnes plead my excuse Accept of this my wish which cannot worthily be stild a love worthy of thee accept also of the payn I am put to in grieving that all creatures are not enamoured on thee I grieve that so many soules espoused to thee by the ring of fayth and so many harts of men fit to love thee most ardently who might make themselves kings of the world and overtop the heavens should lye wallowing in their own ordures and perish by loving themselves and the fraile and loathsome goods of this earth neglecting thee o beauty of creatures and love of the universe The VI. Chapter How great a benefit of glory we hope for GOd is so good and beneficial that he suffers us while we set a false rate upon his benefits our own good Men are vexed with toyling and moyling all their life long to purchase some temporal good and at length are frustrated of their expectation reaping little or no fruit at all of their labours how can they hope to gain eternal it being no part of their sollicitude they scarse ever admitting it into their thoughts the goods which they make their dayly busines are not obtaind with all their endeavours and those which are distant as far as heaven they hope the earth will afford them without any labour they are deeply afflicted for trifling goods and are not so much as shallowly affected for the most important How is it possible that one can proceed so ridiculously in a joy most serious so stupidly about a stupendious good o most humble majesty of God when I consider this last miracle of thy love I loose my self in a maze of amazement How great is that good whose greatnes made it an unseemly thing in God to be liberal but was to expect the additional worth of vertue and our services though they also be divine benefits In our creation and redemption thou wast munificent when we least expected it anticipating the wishes and intentions of man but to enter upon a state of glory thou expectest our joynt-concurrence with thy grace Good God! how vastly great must that good needs be which obstructs by its greatnes the full current of the divine benignity and requires our endeavour and labour And God sels it at a dear rate though he love otherwise to give all gratis he sold it to S. Laurence for a broyling to S. Paul for the price of his head to S. Felicitas for her children to S. Peter for the death of the cross Yea that he might sell it us so dear he himself would buy it at an intolerable rate to wit his own death and the ignominy of the cross God was pleased to bestow and confer his other benefits to make us covet and acquire this how great must that needs be for the coveting wherof his guifts deeds were so stupendious and yet for all this our harts dilate not themselves sufficiently nor are raised to a congruous strain of desire If God attempted so many meanes to make us covet it what ought we not to attempt to enjoy it if God did and sufferd so great things to legitimate us to a true title of such a guift what ought we to do and suffer to enter upon it it is plain non-sense to perswade our selves that we can attain glory without labour since God laboured so much to be able to give it Notwithstanding all this we incur here a double delinquency in this guift more then in others being lyable both to ingratitude and an action of contempt for as much as we endeavour not to acquire that for the acquiring wherof God was at such expense yea steerd to that end all his actions For his other benefits we are ungrateful for this comtemptuous while we pursue it not with
fruition of good things is sayd to be casual because they happen casually but seldome so doth not the multiplicity of evils wherfore his joy wil suffer les interruption who joyes least in wordly solaces O what a content is it to disburden ones self of himself and to live exempted from all importune and carking care of self seeking interest I conceive that he who hath quitted and relinquished himself hath evaded in greatest part the miseries and vexations of this life Neyther is it a mean fruit of a serious and sincere hatred of our selves that it causeth us to love others Consider how insolent and powerful an enemy self love is it hath so much of the tyrant that it intrencheth upon charity and outing it supplies its functions both towards man and God himself it alone consuming and devouring all the affection intended for both He that loves himself disordinately knowes neyther how to love God nor his neighbour he that truly hates himself will love even those that annoy and persecute him he wil rejoyce if any one do wrongfully oppress him knowing that to be depressed in him which is his main obstacle opponent and ought in all reason to be hated and persecuted by him and since no body takes it ill if one jointly together with him molest and infest his deadly enemy but rather holds him worthy of thanks so he that is a hater of himself wil rather love then be otherwise affected towards one that lends a helping hand to persecute him Another and no sorry fruit of self hatred is that it makes us detest sin all that viperous brood descends lineally from self love which is the parent and nurse of all vice and concupiscence and from it all the rest of that gang derive their pedegree He that rejoyceth at an injury wil not offend by being angry nor he that covets to be contemned by pride nor he by impatience who esteems himself worthy of all punishment It is no mean fruit that it removes all impediments in the love of God it is no smal benefit that it subdues thee to thy self and puts thee in a full and peaceable possession of thy self Lastly if thou wilt know what huge advantages arise from self hatred thou must consider how much grace surpasseth sin and vertue vice it is so much more excellent to hate ones self out of vertue then to love out of vice If men even to their utter undoing hate those that have much les endammagd them then thou thy self thou who of all others hast been thy saddest foe must out of the motive of vertue prayse recompense do no les The XI Chapter How we are to love our neighbour O Amiable Truth grant that I may love thee above all and all others for thee give thy self and not riches nor deceitful goods unworthy of love to my friends and all those whom I wish wel Learn o infirm spirit to love creatures without being injurious Many times the manner of loving stands parallel with that of hatred or contumely Thou wilt do a friend whom thou lovest a great injury if thou wish him riches as a real and solid good for by so doing thou shewest thy self to love them better then him for them thou lovest as being all sufficient him as needy wherefore thou wilt rather chuse to want him then them Hence fortune is the umpyre of friendships and its vicissitude is the death of love and birth of treachery Hence an equal danger ariseth to sincere fidelity whether thou lovest thy friend for riches or riches in thy friend As it is also a like tenour of true friendship when thou lovest all for God when thou lovest him alone in them because he alone is the object of thy love Thou wouldst love nothing els but God in all if thou lovedst nothing but him This must be the touch stone of thy love to try whether it be true charity or no. He that loves not riches at all cannot love them as good to another Let God be the common benefit which thou intendest to bestow upon all whom alone if thou give thou wilt make them rich enough And be sure to regard more such benefits in which thou lovest all then such by which thou shalt be loved by all for he that loves all truly as it behooveth shal be saved but he shall not therfore be saved because he is loved by all We must not be so base-conceyted of love as to hold it saleable at any rate it must allwayes be given gratis He sels God who bestowes a charity upon another out of any other motive then charity Cast thy courtesyes into no bodies dish but as thou esteemst whatsoever is conferd upon thee by others as so many blessings coming from God and thankfully attributest them to him alone so must thou esteem it Gods blessing not thine whatsoever thou impartest to others yea reckon this as the greatest of all that he would be pleased to use thee for his instrument and Almner in dividing his benefits Ground thy love towards others not upon temporal motives but spiritual for that foundation which is layd upon them and not upon the H. Ghost is covetousnes not charity not love towards man but list and lust of creatures In like manner be as forward in doing good offices to others as thou wouldst have God to be towards thee proceed upon no other tearmes with others then he doth with thee Grant o love of loves that I may love all as thou lovedst me and all grant that I may love all for thee and none love me for my self I could rather wish if it might be done without sin that each one should hate me rather then love me if they would love me for my self for if each one did hate me I should have but my due if they loved me for my self I should usurp what is thine All that love is impure which is not purely for God The sole love of God alone is onely sincere and refind from â—ll dregs since it neyther mixeth it self nor suffers mixture with contrary affections Other loves are wont to occasion eyther envy or anger or hatred against the party beloved or some other the love of God is immutable and eternal other loves are flitting â—â—eeting Therfore I shal reckon it among my gaines to be loved for thee my God not for my self The XII Chapter That nothing is to be covetted but what God willeth VVHich is more conforme to reason that thou by conformity subject thy wil to the divine or that it servant-like become conforme to thine wilt thou perchance be so self conceyted as to think that thou eyther art better then God in thy wishes or more sound in giving advise remember how often thou hast preferd evil before good how often thou hast stood in thy own light and on the contrary what a sure and certain proof hath God given of his good wil was it perchance a sinister wil to become
The same royal colour of purple recreates men and exasperates buls this purple truth of God this lustre of sanctity delights those that understand it what makes matter if it offend those that have neithet wit nor braines to conceave it yea this makes more for its commendation Nothing shewes the inestimable worth and comelines of truth more then that it seems worthles and deformed to the wicked Consider but the causes of this their aversion and thou shalt see that they render it much more amiable Of all crosses and afflictions truth seemes the most harsh and burdensome because particular afflictions impugne either one onely pleasure or at least but some few but truth fights them all together and proclames warr at once against all other kind of vices Therfore they hold it the saddest adversary they have and for the same reason think they can revenge themselves no wayes more upon their enemys nor sting them more picquantly then by speaking truth to their disadvantage the reason is because what harme soever one most dreads to himself his passion makes him wish the same to his enemy and because he dreads no kind of evil more then truth therfore he tels all he knowes to his adversarys prejudice and seeks thus to wound him as with so many poysonous darts But these causes of offence are arguments which ought to heighten our love and esteem of truth is not that worthy of all love which hath all vice in such hatred and detestation If thou hadst one potion which would cure thee of all diseases thou wouldst not contemne it for being bitter and distastfull nay thou wouldst prize nothing more highly so truth upon that same score is to be loved and adored although it be even nayld to a cross though voyd of beauty and unhandsome But it is comely of sight and pleasant of tast not deformed but deâ—forme not unwise but the wisdome of God the voyce of truth is sweet and its countenance amiable It hath God for its seasoning it cannot be unsavoury or disgustfull or tainting That which makes God happy must not be noysome neither can it make thee miserable What shall I say God is truth and can he be either more distastfull to thee then gal or not more lovely then light Go to then take the courage to look it in the face to affect it to put thy self under its tuition and patronage This is the main maxime of a spiritual life that as carnal people hate nothing more then truth so those that walk the paths of spirit have nothing in higher esteem or desire What is more dear or useful to an archer then his eyes and what ought to be more desirable to a reasonable man then truth which is the eye of his soule Archers and other creatures also made for the behoof of man if they want their eyes become altogether unserviceable so our whole life without truth proves but a fruitles busines No one of the senses is more delectable then the sight and truth surpasseth all the other facultys of the mind neither is it more pleasing a midst the smiles of prosperity then the frownes of adversity Let us therfore begâ—n with an upright conceit of truth to exclude falshood deeming nothing more delightful nothing more excellent then sincere truth of spirit Most men because they believe not this are apt to grant themselves now and then a little indulgence to nature and self love and the propensions of the flesh though but in petty matters mixing with a most subtle dissimulation and self cozenage forraign comforts that so they may mittigate the austerity which they conceive or fear accompagnies the spirit and not trusting sufficiently to it and God they reserve as yet some reliques of their flesh and will of which they are loath to dispoyle themselves that they may make their retreat thither in time of need not daring by a total self denyal to give themselves entirely to God and the spirit as if some corrosives did attend his intimate familiarity These people deceive themselves for this is not the spirit of truth This spirit is a most simple and transparent thing and therfore that will not be true and genuine which is so confounded and intoxicated The flesh and the spirit are two things so different that they cannot be combind into one simple The spirit of truth ought to be so refind and sincere that it is not enough to dread and abhor all the faigned soothings of the flesh all the pernicious dictamens of worldlings and the forciblest insinuations of self love but one must moreover dispoil ones self of himself and his own soul and renounce totally his own will and all created contentments yea even intellectual and otherwise lawful to seek God alone and in him possess all things The spirit is somewhat more sublime and refind then is the soul the understanding or nature Hear thy Iesus saying God is a spirit and those that adore him must do it in spirit and truth Wherfore that thou mayst adore God as thou oughtest and serve him perfectly in truth of spirit thou must reare thy self above all creatures and created affections and breath after and be enamourd upon the divine truth alone and as one ready to depart out of this world bid adieu to thy self and all creatures adhering by pure charity to our Lord becoming one spirit as S. Paul speaks with God who is truth it self Force thy self from thy self that is from thy vicious stock that thou mayst be engrafted in him sever thy self from thy self that thou mayst be united to thy Creatour loosen thy self from thy self that thou mayst be fastned to the cross of Iesus root thy self out of thy wicked self that thou mayst be implanted in all goodnes fly from thy own nature and thou shalt find a sanctuary in God loose thy self unfaignedly and thou shalt find thy self really The III. Chapter Of Purity of Spirit DO not in any thing o coheyre of Christ become like unto the beasts thou who mayst be one spirit with God thou must resemble them in nothing at all Thou oughtest to tread underfoot all the delights of flesh and nature not reserving any one from a total renunciation One alone is able to marr the rellish of truth one alone wil tarnish the lustre of the spirit Great things are oftentimes over powrd by little ones a smal quantity of vinegar spoyles a whole vessel of the strongest wine a little drop of ink infects and discolours a violl of the fairest water Why wilt thou blemish the candour of truth and noblenes of the spirit with a petty delight so triviall and momentary Why dost thou debase thy self so much below thy sublime condition why wilt thou leave the bosome of God and his sweet embracements to solace thy self with the silly dregs of creatures since thou ought not to descend from the cross of Christ for all the kingdoms of the world O miserly and base-minded man since thou hast already employed
me toile in thy iniquities neither have I any other foe so hateful to me as sin thou nevertheles art the occasion that I who make the sun to rise and send showers at due seasons watering the fruits of the earth ripening the apples on the trees furnishing the pastures with grass for the cattles sustenance thou I say art the occasion that I serve thy gluttonous appetite and in the mines which I engenderd in the bowels of the earth become a drudge to thy avarice O villany to make God the servant of villanies the captive of iniquity the caterer of wickednes the steward of malignity Thy vices also made a scorne of me as one that were blinded no man would dare play the thiefe in presence of a severe judge nor do boyes any unseemly act before their master but put out his eyes and they 'l dare any thing they 'l use ridiculous gestures and flout him without controule or danger so thou also though thou knewst me to be present didst commit all kind of wickednes because thou wouldst make me blind Thy sins my foes did that which blinding thee made thee judg the same of me in such a coÌ„dition thou deliveredst me into my enemyes hands that I could not kill them but I must dye my self nor could I indeed justly Samson like better kill sin then by my own death The VII Chapter The second part of the Parable and how we must use creatures YEa and that thy ridiculous proceeding o my soul is to be deplored with inconsolable teares when contemning the true beauty of thy spouse thou adorest its imperfect shadowes in the mean images of creatures If a great Emperour should appoint a day and place for his inauguration by the due homage of his Pears and the people being assembled for that end he should come forth in robes of state carrying his crown scepter chain of gold and other venerable ensigns of majesty and seating himself in a conspicuous throne in the midst of the market place expected each moment the rites and ceremonies of Consecration if in this expectancy they should all forsake him and turne themselves to his statue ill-polishd half defacd and carrying scarse so much as a resemblance of his features and should all adore and do homage to it leaving the good Emperour all alone no body regarding him nor shewing him any respect at all what a cold entertainment would this be how would he blush and remain confounded But what if they should not onely desert him but his statue also and do their obeysance to the print of his foot and that in no better element then clay frustrating all his expectation and sleighting his majesty Thou dost this o my soul while thou lovest and adorest the mangled and mishapd goodnes of creatures which is but a trace or imperfect print of the divine contemning that original goodnes so majestique so compleat so beautiful O men why leave we God alone in his majesty and turn our backs unseemingly to him whome we were created to adore preferring a piece of clay before him what an indignity was it that Barrabas should be preferrd before Christ and Christ sentencd to the cross and how great a one will it be for dirt to be preferrd before the Divinity and be adord as God Why art thou thus cheated o my soul know that all created goodnes what soever is only a rude and duskish image of God Why does a blurrd and slubberd draught please thee when thou mayst delight thy eyes with the polishd lively original Place before a weary traveller a living a carvd horse will he chuse the carvd one since he must be forcd to carry it and not it him to come more commodiously to his journeys end why dost thou burden thy self with created goods to walk more easefully the journey of this life they are only resemblances of the living good he onely shal walk without wearines who hath God for companion of his journy Set a real and painted dish of meat before one that is hungry will he covet to feed on the painted and why then desirest thou shadowes images and seeks not after a real good Man is more absurd then a dog who if he light on a piece of bread he takes it and leaves it not to bite at a shadow but thou leaving God embracest his shadow Why desirest thou a part rather then the whole if one that is thirsty see two pitchers the one whole the other broken wil he leave the whole one and content himself with the eare of the broken or some other fragment to take up water to quench his thirst creatures are onely partial images of the divine goodnes whose perfections are divided among created natures why wilt thou choose a part rather then the whole and a part of that whol which availes not but in the whole neither do creatures conduce singly a part nor all together but only in God broken pitchers nor any fragment of them in particular nor all together are useful to take up water and the thirst of our appetite can onely be satiated with the integrity of the divine goodnes Learn the true use of creatures they are not to work upon the will but to help the memory Thou forgetting God amuzes and busies thy will but does not satiate it and because it is not satiated thou mayst easily know thou art deluded Albeit thou love all the goods of this world yea and enjoy them all yet stil thy desire will be as empty and hungry as ever Painted bread doth not fil one but is onely a figure of that which fils so created goods do not satiate the appetite but are resemblances of that which satiates to wit God All the goods of this world stand proportiond to our will as a painted fire to a cold hand one may take it and apply it but shal find neither warmth nor refreshment A picture of burning coales pleaseth the eye but contents not the touch of him that is cold and created things affect the mâ—nd but doe not satisfy the affection God gave his people monitory memorials of his law which they were to sow in the skirts of their garments to hangat their wrests write in the posts and gates of their houses least forgetting the true God of Israel they might fal to adore false ones No less provident was he in the great house of this world which he built for man he engravâ— every where in it monitories of himself in the posts in the gates in the pavements of the earth by such variety of natures in the rooff and arches of the heavens by so many refulgent lights All the good that is among creatures are so many commandatories to make thee love God and adore no other why then Pharisy like contemning this admonition dost thou dilate them and magnify these borders possessing more or covetting more or deeming any thing great besides him Thou crosses and thwarts the designes of God adoring that
requisite that thou faint not under the burden of difficulties neither is any strength imaginable equivalent to the least particle of the divine infinitude God is infinite and how then darest thou o strait-harted creature limit and bound thy desires The fading goods of this world are desird a hundred yea a thousand times more then they covet or deserve to be and are not for all that obtained God is immense and infinite and ought to be desird more then infinitely and why breathst thou after him so faintly and remâ—sly and labourst to possess thy self of him being void of this flagrancy of affection zowze up thy self and be confounded that thou dost not covet him more then an ordinary man covets created goods yea more then ever any other creature coveted him A most intense desire is a golden key that unlocks the gates of heaven and opens the passage to all our spiritual progress for as no meane thing is compassd without some precedent desire of it so the most difficult and pretious of all others cannot be attained but with a most ardent one To obtaine terrene joyes it is requisite that our desire far exceed their worth and value that so it may make us master all rubs that occur in their purchase and is it not an arrand shame that our affection to the eternal joyes of Gods infinity should be so pitty fully remiss and rate them so much below their worth below what they exact and we may afford Grant me grace o Lord thou who out of thy excessive desire of suffering for me wert straitned so far as to be baptizd in thy own blood that I may be carried with a most intense desire towards thee What ought to be dear to me either in heaven or earth besides thee my God and the lover of me and next to thee what but to suffer for and with thee It is a profound act of contrition and a love due to the divine goodnes to be willing to suffer for the least vemal sin yea to impede the least in any body else as much as in me lyes the paines of hel through all eternity and how much o Lord should I covet to suffer for my spiritual advancement and rather then I my self commit that And notwithstanding how little am I sollicitous for thy glory my whole employment ought to tend to the compassing of this by desire prayer sighs and teares and since all I can do is litle or nothing in comparison of thy greatnes my good wil must make amends for my inability and supply for my defectuousnes The X. Chapter Of contemning and relinquishing the world VVOrldly joyes as wel as discontents conclude alwayes with sorrow and bitternes but a vertuous course is so priviledgd that not only its consentive part but also the harsh and burdensome both containes and attaines true delight Why walkst thou the way of spirit with such heavines and tepidity Thou canst not set thy affection upon any thing of this world without thy great peril and hazard yea thou seekst thy own danger where those things which it prizeth for good are bad and â—ul of corruption and will corrupt thee also If a little leven mar the whole batch how can he be untainted and unlevened who is so incorporated with the world whose whole lump is stark naught where the bad a lone are accounted good and they so numerous He that is once dead to the world let him beware he revive not to it again by dying to God or coveting worldly things although he neither possess nor enjoy them The love of temporalities is wont to harme us more then the use and possession of them it s not the thing but the affection to the thing which hurts us which affection is more restlesly pressing in its absence Be not according to Saint Iude a tree twice dead and unfruitful He dies to the world who relinquisheth the world he is defunct to God who returnes to it again Such a one having lost the fruit and commodities of a worldly life looseth also the benefits of a spiritual and consequently is altogether unprofitable and barren to himself The world cannot endure the sight of one that is dead a worldly life is a sea and it harbours not dead bodies but within three daies space casts them up Beware thou be not deceived if now thou deemst it good when thou hast no commerce with it remember that it was evil when thou traffickst with it and knewst it not superficially and at a distance and therfore didst relinquish it Believe rather thy own certain experience then a deceitful opinion believe rather thy self an eye witnes then one that is absent Know that it is not changed since thou left it nor grown better by length of time nor that it affords any more security then it did but is rather worse every day then other It decayes daily it doats more and more by age an errour gaines autority by being old its wine drinks with a stronger relish of malice for being long kept vices the more inveterate they are get a more undeniable prescription and new ones arise daily Because the world was evil thou couldst not brook it now when it is grown worse why wilt thou embrace it It is intollerable and perfidious even to those who did stick constantly and without breach of trust to it what will it then be to thee who hast revolted both from it and God loyal to neither wherfore the world wil chastize thee as a fugitive and God will not defend thee by reason of thy treachery There are more urgent reasons now of not returning to the world then there were at first of leaving it or at least the same are now in force which forcd thee then to quit it It is blind and a cheat both to it self and thee of a base nature and to be despisd even although otherwise not despicable because it hinders great good and torments its lovers be set on all sides with the dangers not only of temporal things but which is more of eternal also it is nothing else but falshood and forgery for besides that it is malicious and habituated in cozening others it is also cozend it self in so much that worldly men will deceive thee even when they intend nothing less then deceits The very wisdome of the world is pure folly how then shal truth appeare in it and when all the light it hath is darknes how great darknes must that needs be its whole train of attendance foundations are instruments of blindnes and dim the eyes of our judgment to wit pride gluttony lust envy ambition anger to which we may add treachery in so much that Iudas like even when it fawnes most upon them it betraies its darlings by that kiss to perdition and the power of darknes The world is a cheat it sels its glory which is nothing at a high rate And it were a smal matter if it were only nothing and not ignominious also
whosoever loves any thing as good to himself aymes alwayes at that which is more perfect and by good consequence he that loves life must not love a temporal but eternal life who loves good things must not love earthly but heavenly goods wherfore our very affection to things compels us to disaffect all worldly things Ther 's no body that loves any good thing but he wisheth it perpetual though the contrary be absurd yet we alwaies do it for through our love to life and goods we suffer great detriment both of life and goods Tel me o thou wretched of the world who art so forgetful of eternal life whether dost thou despise these transitory things or love them If thou dispisest them it must be for this reason because thou seekst after better if thou lovest them how much are greater things more worthy of love How ever the case stands it is convinced that we ought to love eternal things which will accrue to us so much more copiously by how much the more we are impoverishd disesteemd afflicted for God Notwithstanding all this the sufferings of this life are in no degree proportionable to the future glory for what is here but light and momentary works in us an eternal poize of the same Our provision for eternity may be prepard with much facility and ought to be kept with all carefulnes Each one furnisheth most plentifully the place he intends for his longest abode and where his residence is to be but for a short time that he regards but sleightly and provides it but superficially An eternity expects us in the other life we must lay up store of merits for it least we make our provisions preposterously bestowing great care on a short abode and little on a long But we ought to have transitory things in hatred not only in regard of the eternal life but even in respect of this temporal they disquiet and vex us with a thousand cares while we are procuring them and with a thousand feares and frights least we fal short of them we brook any loss but impatiently which happening so frequently as they do we are tossd in a continual sea of griefe anger and endles vexations He alone who goes contrary to the world lives without contrariety and in a holy repose How then do these things deserve the name of goods which are so noysome and tormenting to us rather the quite opposite ate to be stiled such which far sooner render us such by putting us in mind of our present condition by making us think upon God and have recourse to him by occasioning our greater merit and assimilating us to the only begotten Son of God The lover of men IESVS did most truly tearm those not only good but also beatifying Yea the choysest of the heathen Philosophers held not those things which the world so much adores good but their contrary Some of them hated and rejected temporal riches that at least in this life void of care and fear and perplexity of mind they might enjoy a temporal felicity It redounds to our great shame that heathens should do so who wanted the example of the Son of God who were out of hopes of other goods and this when the world was in its youth and verdure and abounded more with such allurements though false and counterfeyt But we have the glory of imitating IESVS and the incentive of a heavenly reward the world moreover is now grown worse and more deformed and wants not only solid goods but also fading Now it scarse hath where with all to bait a deceitful book its false varnish is washd of in so much that it cannot deceive us unles we deceive our selves The XII Chapter Of the excellency of one that is in the state of grace VVHy seekst thou any thing of the world if thou be above the world why lovest thou any earthly thing since thou art beloved of God How can he stick in the mud of nature who is elevated to the state of grace O good as little understood as much neglected God hath bestowd large and pretious promises upon us to make us sharers of his divine nature Why seeks he any thing besides God who hath found the grace of God which raiseth him above all nature yea even that of the highest Thrones Cherubins and Seraphins if therrs be considerd in it self though so far surpassing all other created substance by which we have God for our Father for our friend and unseparable Achates It 's accounted a matter of high concernment among men to have precedency of place or dignity before others and what wil it then be to have a preeminence above all the degrees of nature Although the world were never so estimable the things in it beyond our valuation yet they ought to be contemnd by one in the state of grace The divel is intolerably proud yet he regards not the opinions of men concerning him nor deems himself one iot the worse for being revild by them he seeks not popular applause he sleights material things he loaths what we relish so savourly he scofs at our affaires and all this for no other reason but because he is of a more sublime nature why then is man who is raisd to a participation of Gods nature who is rankd in the highest class of creatures so sollicitous about these base trifles certainly if he understood throughly the dignity that is conferd upon him by being rightly confessd and put in the state of grace nothing else would be requisite to make him contemne and deride these fopperies of creatures nor were any great store of vertue needful to move him to this but he would do it even by his vicious nature unles we should hold it impossible that grace could be the authour of a misdeed The wicked spirits without any vertue at all have a most mean conceit of these sublunary things and why but because they are of a Superiour nature and rank above them What then ought man to do with vertue who is elevated above all nature If a great king in his robes of state should find a spade or sickle lying in the way he would scorn to stoop to take it up as being of a more eminent condition then a peasant and why doth man when he hath once possessd his soul of Gods grace stoop and debase himself to earthly things since his dignity overtops the heavens O how great is the excellency of grace It lies conceald many times under a course and contemptible garment in a weak body feeble and sometimes loathsome to the eye Consider how much the noblest nature of a Seraphin surpasseth the basest of a silly worme yet ther is not the meanest slave and ugliest Lepar if he be in the state of grace but doth much more exceed the nature of a higher Angel If God should create a select nature in which all under-natures vegetative sensitive rational Angelical were comprehended in so much that these sublime intelligences of
wil alwayes be with us himself What mother loves her child so tēderly as that she wil continually have him in her armes Yet God doth this Grace is a knot which tyes God and man together it is the sweet and mutual embracement of the spirit divine and humane Among men the father may not be where the Son is but God cannot but be with him that is in grace Although God be existent in creatures both by his essence presence and power this is so because he is God and it cannot be otherwise not for any dignity or desert in them but by reason of his immensity and infinitude But grace not nature hath this attractivenes that although God could be absent and were limitable to locality yet it would make him present and existent with one in grace residing with him and becoming one spirit yea albeit he could forget his creatures he would be alwaies sweetly present to his memory share of his providence although he could relinquish them and not operate in them nor conserve maintain them yet he would stil be working some good in the just for as love is effectual so it never intends any good but it compleats it What a benefit and dignity is it to have God alwaies for our companion certainly we should be struck with amazement to see any creature so beloved by God and so noble that he commanded his celestial spirits those thousands of thousands that attend him to accompany it whether soever it went and be followd by all that traine so stately and majestical yet this would be but solitude in comparison of the fellowship and attendance of God What are all things before thee o lord but as it were a mere nothing and vacuity If we should admire such a creature why do we not also admire a sould in grace since it hath God for its attendance not waiting at its elbow but as it were in its essence enlivening it O most fortunate dignity of man and dignation of God to have that highest Majesty alwaies accompanying the Sons of men for God will not be a lazy and unprofitable companion to a soul not providing what is beho offul to it Wil he be like one that is sluggish or blind who neither sees nor resents the necessities and miseries which press it certainly God doth not associate himself to the just for nothing They may wel neglect both themselves and their temporal if only they be careful of what concerns him he wil have a care of them O my Father o friend o companion I beg of thy Majesty that I may alwaies carry a due reverence fidelity and affability towards thee I wil demean my self to thee as a child doth to his parent taking all thy affaires to hart reputing them my own not otherwise then towardly children are industriously careful of their parents busines because they look upon it as their own I beseech thee that I may be a faithful friend to thee seeking at all turnes thy greater honour glory advancing what concerns thee loving thee more then my self Grant that I may keep with thee all the rules of good fellowship least by my continual defects I may contristate thy holy spirit But if all grace be of such vertue and efficacy in it self that it makes us kinsmen and allies of God most dear to him yea in a manner Gods and this because it is given by Christ hence it followes that that portion of it which befals man is more happy more venerable and highlyer priviledgd then that which was bestowd upon the Angels or our first parents in the state of innocency Those children are ordinarily first in their parents affection who were deliverd into the world with the strongest throwes of a hard labour and what wonder then if our grace be dearer to Christ since it cost him so many sorrowes and he for it bestow on us greater priviledges affording us more helps tolerating us more patiently and longanimously raysing us to great spiritual advancement in so much that the very Angels themselves do honour men for this respect that they have grace by Christ are struck with a reverential fear to see our nature now prostrate before them which they sleighted so much before God became Incarnate by assuming it and this because a special dignity accrues to the grace we partake of we being made therby living members of Christ computed the same with him There redounds a certain veneration from the head to the members how can the Angels despise our nature which they admiringly behold exalted above theirs even to the throne of the Divinity and fellowship of God what wonder if they treat us not as their inferiours whome the Son of God the first begotten among many brethren under the title of equals exalted above the celestial spirits themselves calling men his brethren and esteeming them more then Angels He never honored any of the Seraphins so much as to call him brother This is the highest prerogative of grace which renders it so honorable and elevates it above all nature Moreover our nature it self by grace through Christ is dignified and exalted above all other natures for as much as the Lord of glory communicates the same his glory with his joyntly united members and living allyes Our grace also is founded upon the merits of IESVS and his union as if therby it gave us a juster title to merit from God and makes us do it after a perfecter manner For we are all children of sorrow we are Gods Benjamins the Sons of his right hand and dear above all others O most loving father who sacrificd they only begotten Son to death that I becoming thy Son might live grant that I may alwayes have a true esteem and knowledg of this inestimable benefit One Angel is more endebted to thee for the least degree of grace which he received then all creatures together for all the goods of nature and creation of the universe But I a silly wretched man owe thee more for the least particle of grace bestowd upon me then all the Hierachies of Angels for all the supernatural guifts conferrd upon them all together For to the end that I through grace might live a divine life thou wouldst have thy son in humane nature to suffer an unhamane death Thou hast done more for me then for all the Angels thou hast heapd more obligations upon me then upon the Cherubins and Seraphins There are two reasons for which men are obligd to preserve and highly magnify divine grace The one is its inestimable worth and unspeakable dignity the other is thy most pretious blood o IESVS which thou didst shed to merit grace If we be not satisfyd of its value in its self this may throughly convince us that thou wouldst purchase it for us at so deare a rate It must needs be a rare and stupendious thing which God who cannot err in his choise chose rather to give us then save the life of
to wit divine grace merited for us by his Passion and remaining inherent in us He satiates our hungar with his own Body he quencheth our thirst with his sacred blood he enricheth our penury with the ample treasure of his inexhaustible merits If thou wilt know how much Christs merits are thine how thou maist employ them to gaine grace offer them to God to obtaine mercy hence gather it to wit because he reput'd thy sins his It was said in the person of Christ the words of my offences Yet we must not think his merits so to be ours as that it is not needful to have any of our own but may be saved by sitting stil doing nothing for Iesus died not that we might be negligent but fervent and zealous in the divine service Even as the soul of Christ could not suffer damnation for thy sins unles he committed some himself which was impossible so neither shalt thou be saved by the merits of Christ unles thou do good works and have grace inherent in thee which nevertheles is also from Christ He gave us then his merits that we might use them as our own to appease Gods wrath and indignation no otherwise then he took upon him our sins as his own to make satisfaction he grieved he deplored them he satisfyd for them as if they had been his own delinquencies He gave us not his meer naked works but cloathd in their robes of dignity that is as performd by a divine person insomuch that as he took upon him our sins as committed by most vile and abject creatures his servants so we should partake of his merits as treasurd up by the Son of God equal to his heavenly father Let us imitate Christ in as much as he appropriated to himself our faults that we may learn how to use his merits and appropriate them to our selves Deem o sinner Christs merits thine and upon that account make thy demands with great confidence for this is to ask in the name of Christ His merits given to us are far more available to this then if we had done the same our selves had been crucifyed for the glory of God for in that case they would not be the works of God but man a sinner Lo then how much thou art obligd to Christ who took upon him thy sins and gave thee his merits who quitted thee of so great evil and bestowd upon thee so great good These two scores upon which he demands this satisfaction of thee are infinitly obligatory to wit that as he satisfyd for thy sins as if he had committed them so thou must not offer the merits of Christs otherwise to God and procure grace by them then as if they were thy own O most sweet IESV that I could but understand what benefit and advantages have do accrue to us so wretched from thee we were monsters of horrour and now by thy meanes we are become a spectacle grateful to God we were in the very mud and bottom of hel and now we are in the bosome I wil not say of Abraham the father of nations but of God thy father we were in the throat of the infernal dragon now we are in the hart of God himself we were an object unworthy of the divine eyes now we are worthy of his embracements we were slaves comdemnd to the prison of hel now by thee we shal be crownd kings of heaven Who can conceive whither we had precipitated our selves and to what thou hast exalted us our misery ought to have been throughly contented if thou hadst only freed us out of hel but not thy mercy unles thou hadst also elevated us above the heavens and so many Angels thou hadst done too-much when we were involud in an irreparable misery and so desperately that all redress seemd wholy impossible if thou hadst only obtaynd of thy father a surcease of his anger but thou gottest us also our pardon thou hadst done too much in getting our pardon but thou moreover ga inedst us his good will his love and his favour thou hadst done too-much and a thing deserving admiration if thou hadst only won his good will but thou obtainedst for us also guifts and graces thou hadst done too much and what might worthily make us amazd if thou hadst obtaind for us but the least guift at Gods hand but thou hast gotten us his kingdom and thy own inheritance thou hadst done too much if thou hadst effected this but once but thou hast effected that it should be given us innumerable times if we faulterd so often supposing we had recourse to thee by true pennance lastly thou obtainedst for us whatsoever God possesseth vouchsafedst to admit us as loathsome abominable as we wer to share with thee in thy patrimony Behold o man from whence Christ hath deliverd thee and where he hath installd thee if thou unwittingly and at hap-hazard hadst freed another not from death but some casual distress what thanks and gratitude wouldst thou expect from him savage beasts are grateful even for some benefits a fierce lion for one thorn pulld out of his foot was mindful of the good turn after a long time and requited it and why make we the immense benefits conferrd on us by Christ of an inferiour rank to those of wild beasts and rather stand not amazd and at a nonplus through desire of gratitude but perchance Christ was obligd to do for us what he did or did it with case and with out expense nay we were his enemies and the busines was most difficult and desperate and the atchieving it cost him no less then the price of his blood and pretious life O Immense charity of God what hast thou done for hatefulman when we were in an impossibility of salvation and knew not which way to turne our selves thou o most merciful God foundest out a remedy a devise a stratagem of stupendious mercy and when the compassing of it was out of our reach thou thy self wouldst execute the design But what kind of remedy was it what captive durst wish much less ask of his king that to gain his freedom he would become prisoner Thou o my IESVS wert content for our sakes to do more then we durst either hope or wish Thou being the king of glory wert bound for us hand and foot and treated as one that pleads guilty yea condemnd and executed for us thy enemies that stood impeachd of high treason It were an act worth admiration if an Emperour should daigne to visit a peasant cast into prison for his misde meanours and how much more if his own betraier what if he should quit his throne for him and in a disguisd habit remain prisoner while the malefactour made an escape Thou didst this o most loving IESVS His praise is never sufficiently renownd who made himself captive to redeem his friend nor that servant who to rescue his king exposd himself both to his enemies death nor that parent who
sweat from his body as the press doth wine frō the bunch of grapes If any one should have sufferd all the torments of Martyrs all the diseases and anguish of all men even from the first day of Adams transgression til such time as Christ comes to judgment all this would not be equivalent to his paine which also upon this score that it was spiritual was bitterer in its kind then any corporal affliction whatsoever The fulnes of the Divinity resided in Christ and the clear vision of God did illustrate him which nevertheles obstructed not some effects but it was miraculously so orderd least by it a tyde of joy should over flow his whole body and the inferiour portion of his soul that place might be left for sorrow as it fel out in his sacred Passion But in the hart of IESVS grieving for our offences it did not only give way to extreme sadnes but did extremely augment it by reason of his perfect knowledg of God offended for how much more perfect this knowledg was it causd a sorrow so much greater and CHRIST alone had a more perfect intuitive knowledg of God then all the Cherubins Seraphins then all the other Angels and Saints in heaven Christs love also towards God offended was corresponding to the vision of the divine Majesty wherfore his sorrow exceeds the comprehension either of word or thought for he let no opportunity slip of suffering as much as he could and was beseeming him to suffer yea prodigious miracles were wrought in his most holy soul that sorrow might have its ful effect Why then are we so sollicitous to compass joyes and rack ourwits so much in the search of new pleasures if IESVS sufferd all this in his hart which none ought to think upon without teares and each good Christian ought to make it the theam of his thought How darest thou o my hart slacken the raines to joy consider the cause why thy IESVS sufferd it was for thy offences that he might work thy salvation Because I trespassd therfore he loves me so tenderly and confers blessings upon me Why doth not this lover of me and benefactour to his enemies heap coales of fire upon my head make me blush at my own proceedings why doth he not heap coales of fire upon my hart that I may burn with love of him and a desire of his imitation I wil place the sad hart of IESVS upon my obdurate hart that he may find me at length according to his hart a frend and desirous of suffering Compassionate o my hart with the suffering IESVS and comfort him in his sufferings How wilt thou obtain mercy by the sufferings of Christ if thou hast not compassion over Christ suffering be not unmindful of such a courtesy from thy suerty S. Iames Guisay not to be unmindful of it besides his daily meditation and other devotions to it carried it alwaies about him written in a little Book in token that it was engraven in his hart and faild no day to read it over This memory of his Saviours cross was so acceptable to Almighty God that he vouchsafed him after his entrance into the Society a true conformity with it that is to be crucified for his sake and by his sufferings to adumbrate the death of his B. Son and Christ was not backward in recompensing the devotion of the Saint for upon the place where he and many other Saints were crucified miraculous lights were seen every friday in the ayre approving and attesting the comformablenes of their suffering with that of Christ The memory of his Passion is grateful to him and that we might have a perpetual memorial of it before our eyes he instituted the admirable Sacrament of his most holy Body But if thou be midful of Christ suffering why art thou not unsufferable to thy self and hartily angry at thy own proceedings The king of Moab sorely straitned by the siege of the Israelites being quite out of hope of all relief took his eldest Son who was to succeed him in his throne and offerd him in holocaust upon the wals and it causd such a commotion indignation in the Israelits camp that forth with they raisd their siege and departed Behold the holocaust of the first and only begotten Son of God upon the altar of the cross why art thou not replenishd with disdain against thy self quitting all self will and pleasure we use to compassionate even externs yea even brute beasts why do we not so to our God to our Father to our brother o our shameles obstinacy who insteed of commiserating him crucify IESVS again by new offences remember that God is thy Father not thy foe that he suffers for thee his foe not for the beasts of the field or their salvation for thee not for himself the bitterst of all punishments wounded in all his members not only afflicted with some smal ach of his head or stomack because he did thee and the world a good turne not because he put cities into combustion publickly on a day of solemnity and in a mountain betwixt two thieves as their captain and ringleader not in a by-corner and secretly the object of all mens hatred disgrace and scorne in so much that the mercy of men was wanting to him alone who is mercy it self Nevertheles he suffers willingly and lovingly not forcedly not frettingly not complainingly because it was for thee of his own people not of barbarians and Scythians for the space of 33. yeares not for an hour or two Compassionate then with IESVS and make not all he has done fruitles forbear to offend him begin to imitate him and that his Passion may truly benefit thee make it the model of thy imitation The VI. Chapter How far we are to follow Christ GOD doth not tempt us though he hath made our salvation ful of difficulty Nothing is more acceptable to him he having done and sufferd so much then that we imitate him The words of a man placed in autority are held for lawes and must be fulfild why are the deeds of God less observable he that sets the humble and most sorrowful hart of Christ as a signet upon his own let him set it also upon his arme that he may imitate what he commiserates Love is not soft and effeminate but strong and masculin and the cross of Christ will crucify Gods zealot by compassion and emulation The imitation of Christ is harsh and unsavory some have it in as much hatred as hell it self but for all that we cannot emulate better graces Fear no cosenage when he perswades thee to take the cross for thy delights disgrace for thy honour poverty for riches he is the prime and undoubted truth The eternal wisdome and divine intellect hath so orderd hath judgd it expedient Be not diffident he is the supreme goodnes and highest power by these nevertheles he redeemd thee and by the same thou must complete thy salvation that work is begun accomplished
thou being therby refined and purified thy spouse trimming thee up in such a dress as may wel beseem his bedchamber If he leave it then wholly in thy power to love God what cause of tergiversatioÌ„ since he leaves arbitrary to thee what thou wishest and desirest where thou hast opportunity to suffer and love there is no just ground of complaint If it were put to thy choise whether thou wouldst sleep or die for half an houres space a soul truly inflamed with the ardours of charity would of it self prefer death that it might not be reduced to a cessation of love yea it would not thirst more after the resurrection of the body then after avoiding all unnecessary excess of sleep though but for a quarter of an hour as much as might be without impairing its corporal health For the mean of discretion is every where to be observed and we must take a necessary repose though against our will that the functions of our mind may be vigorous and masculine fitly disposed for all enterprizes to Gods glory as also for praier least if we indiscreetly deprive our selves of it we be heavy at our devotions too drowzy and languishing and so by little and little quite benumd and what then wil be the issue but that we perform them with little fruit But to be too indulgent to sleep beseems the dead rather then the living and a soul weighing things in themselves that is with an impartial ballance and siezd with the heat of divine love to avoid this inconvenience all acts of love and prayse surceasing for that interim it would perchance rather make choise of a perpetual death of the body because in that case one may love enjoy God which alone sufficeth and is the chief desire of an enamoured soul but being so charmed and stupifyd it cannot although one wil not easily conceive this who doth not experience in himself the avaricious incentives of divine love and its restles longings and motions nor how contemptibly an enflamd hart spurns at all self commodity But we must not measure the ardour of true love and a devoted affection by the ell of our lukewarmnes rather by what we behold in those that fondly doat even to madnes upon a perishable beauty we may guess at the feelings and flames of a pretender to an eternal and never fading one But if thy breast harbour not fuel for such a heat shun at least as much as thou canst the chilnes of tepidity and sleepines If it were intimated to thee that forthwith thou must be annihilated such tydings would fil thee with horrour why then wilt thou so joy in sleep it being all one as if for such a respit thou wert annihilated Apprehend the incommodities of sleep which is an evil manifold death it being very opposite to a 4. fold life for sleep deprives us of the chief life of our body in which it is equivalent to death it self it takes away the life of our soul which is then as if it were not at all in this it surpasseth death sleep is also in some sort injurious to the life of grace and the eternal life by causing such an interruption of merit What then can be more prejudicial to us wherfore one that burnes with the true flame of divine love and is siezd with an ardent desire of praysing so great a good is hugely covetous of the least advantages of time and deems any unnecessary expense in that kind an irreparable loss and consequently he goes to sleep with much regret accepting with patience this necessity imposed by God upon life and making to him an oblation of it taking in good part since his holy wil is such to be deprived for this interim of what he much more covets which is to love prayse God and be restles in his service and as much as in him lyes he covets not to sleep but rather busy himself in the former actuations thinking every hour a day til he return to his wonted employment Thou also must put on this disposition of wil and offer it to God compose thy self like one ready to give up the Ghost saying with Christ into thy hands o Lord I commend my spirit By thus behaving thy self thou shalt after a manner merit by that death and vacancy of sleep so untoothsome and distastful to thy rellish Conceive also ardent desires of that ever during life when without interruption thou shalt enjoy God and bewail the miseries of this life since thou must seek repose and relaxation for thy exhausted spirits in a thing of all others most burdensome to thee and prejudicial to all to wit sleep How can life it self chuse but be noysome its very rest being so restles and its advantages so disadvantageous it is a lamentable thing that life must be repaird at the very charges and expenses of life since the lover of God esteems somtimes a short sleep more dammageable then the loss of a long life When thou art laid to repose endeavour to seal up thy eyes and hart with the ferventest act of love which ever thou didst make in thy whole life and even before thou fallest a sleep desire to rise as soon as may be purposing at thy first waking to unseale thy hart and actuate it in more fervent eâ—aculations then hitherto thou hast done so to compass in that instant a new purchase of grace It wil not a little conduce to this to beg the concurrence of thy Angel Guardian as also to use a spare and frugal diet Strike up this bargain with thy body in the meane while repose take thy penny-worths but be sure to rise as soon as the bell calls thee to work Like as the soul for the good of the body dies as it were by night and is buried so must the body die by day for the good and benefit of the soul while it is awake let the body be dead to this world as when the soul is a sleep it is dead for that respit to heaven that is to meritorious actions and pious thoughts Procure in the meane while that thy body as much as may be supply the elevations and obsecrations of thy soul the which not being as then in a capacity to pray the body must do it by lying modestly in a be seeming posture and for more decency not right upward We compose coarses and embalm them against corruption though they must shortly be the food of wormes and spoile of time so let us compose and dispose our selves in this death of sleep that we may be fit for the chast embracements of Christ Lye with thy armes or fingars a cross such treasures as these must thou coffin up together with thy self till the morning revive thee for treasures were wont to be buried and deposited with the dead Be sure thou never desert the cross but whilst thy mind cannot cling to it thy body must carrying alwayes about with it the mortification of IESVS Christ when
upon thee by name when it stood â—ritten in the front of the book that he was to do the will of God he said o heavenly Father even for that contemptible Caytif Iohn will I also undergo a whipping a crowning a cross ignominy even death it self I give I offer I sacrifice my self wholly for his salvation And will it not be also thy duty to reflect upon Christ and say o my God this day for my Saviours sake wil I embrace all corporal labours and anguish of mind that I may love serve and glorify him with all the extent of my affection If God had created thee in the state of grace in an ample freedome of will and had by divine revelation indoctrinated thee in all the mysteries of our faith and thou didst see thy self dear to him and his B. Son become man and crucified with unspeakable love for thy sake were it not thy duty in these circumstances to give thy self wholly to God and power thy self forth upon him it is all one as if he had but just now created thee be oâ— good courage thou shalt awake in the state of grace behold thou findst thy redemption accomplishd to thy hand by the death and torments of thy God and this with so early a love that Christ sufferd for thee a thousand and so many yeares before thou wert born that he might have plenty of grace in store for thee Neyther Adam nor S. Michael nor Gabriel nor any other of the Angels no nor their queen her self the sacred Virgin found such preventing diligence such a feat of love to wit that God had already died for their releasment Be inflamed then forth with with a recipocal love and burning desires towards so magnificent a goodnes so speedily provident over thy affaires and do not contemn such an anticipation in what concerns thy eternal weal. Adam stood in expectation of this benefit the space of 4000. yeares but the benefit it self hath expected thee already above 1600 and it is neyther right nor reason that thou requite such sedulity and quicknes with so much sluggishnes and delay Procrastinate no longer thy conversion to God who hath so long expected thee in a great deal of patience Put case a proffer of coming to life were made to the soules which now are only in a possibility of existence and this upon the same conditions helps and favours which God hath daignd to bestow this day upon thee how would they joy how happy would they esteem themselves how officiously would they spend that day how would they in the very entrance of life sacrifice themselves to such a benefact or And what if he should make this proffer to those whom this very night he hath sentenced to hel fire while he so lovingly stood centry over thee in thy repose with what incredible fervour would they at their first return to life consecrate themselves to Almighty God as also the remnant of that day and their whol life if they did but once behold themselves adornd with divine grace with supernatural habits and such opportunities of serving so beneficial a God Be thou confounded for not sacrificing thy self more fervently to him who is much more munificent towards thee it is a greater matter to have preserved thee from damnation then to have reprieved thee being once condemned Spur up thy self to outstrip the fervor of many just soules and be thankful that thou findst not thy self this morning plungd in hell but freed from it as also from so many dangers and sins which innumerable others have this night incurd Do thou alone wish to give him if it were possible that glory which all the Saints will be still rendering through the great day of eternity which desire thou must unfaignedly iterate in the course of the whole day and that with sighs from thy very hart neither in the morning only but oftner as if then newly set on foot and created begin the journey of Gods service allwayes with a fresh and vigorous courage The V. Chapter That our daily fervour must be retained THOV providest but fondly for this dayes life neyther art thou secure of that if thou delayst it till to morrow If the use of this dayes life be granted thee live wel and perfectly for he only is said to live who lives wel Thou diest miserably being yet alive if thou leadest not a good life Each morning when thou awakest purpose to live that day as wel as possibly thou canst as if thou wert undoubtedly to dye the same night Delay not the amendment of any defect till another day which perchance thou wilt never see eyther the day or thy wil wil fayl thee The day to come wil go wel with thee if the present do One must never hazard a thing so good as is a good life but be alwaies in an active fruition of it Thou art industrious in avoiding any thing that may endanger life and why dost thou by delaying prepare and call danger to a good life Live to day and protract not to amend what is amiss after this week or month or the disposall of this affair To day God is our Lord and to day must thou be the servant of God for he is thy servant to day since he to day makes the sun rise to thy behoof He delaies not his guifts till to morrow neither must thou thy services To day God heaps benefits upon thee which thou canst not challenge be not thou wanting to services which he exacts The services of another day wil not suffice for the beneficence of their day why wilt thou have them satisfy for the day past and for the benefits of the present its own goodnes is not sufficient to pay its debt why wilt thou make it pay for the malice of another God especially redoubling thy debts and his graces to day God is God and to day thou art his creature to day Christ is thy redeemer and thou to day his redeemed IESVS is Christ yesterday to day thou hast a being to day and shalt perchance not have one to morrow To day and every moment art thou a debter to God who impends continually his omnipotency to thy behoof thou also must each moment impend all thy forces in his love and service How darest thou incur the loss of one hour since thou canst not make recompense for the least benefit which thou receivest this instant flowing from the ocean of Gods infinite love How darest thou suspend the quitting thy obligation for the interval of one day or hour for if God suspended his munificence but for a piece of an hour thou wouldst not be in the world or if he suspended his indulgence thou wouldst be in hell An eternal salary is promised thee thou must not merit by interrupted services If thou wilt truly live never intermit to live wel this is an eternal truth O Truth give me grace to serve thee truly henceforth for all eternity and that I may eternally
attempt things both unknown and uncertain why can we for love of vertue and the honour of God sustain nothing with constancy he that hopes for a continual and eternal good unjustly shuns labours in its pursuance he that is to be alwayes happy must be alwayes good for Each day condemns mans irreligious facts All seasons open are to vertues acts as saith S. Prosper The greatest grace of all other is to preserve the grace which is given thee and thy chief work not to surcease from doing works As a creature would be very deformed without head and life such a monster is a good life without a corresponding end We have received grace without any paines but we must conserve it both by grace and paines The beginning of a thing is accounted half its accomplishment but unles it end wel all comes to nothing In the matter of perseverance the end is all in all for nothing is done so long as any thing remaines undone It imports little to have laboured hard all ones life long if he faulter in the end The sole last moment of perseverance is more available then all the years by past for all their fruit proves rotten if it did not borrow thence a preserving soundnes Thou wilt think it a hard task to persever but it is much harder to begin again and much more then that to begin often Wherfore it is both more easy and more conducible to persever once then to begin often Horses force themselves les in a continued course of drawing a chariot then after having stood stil when they are to move it again Water which hath been once heated being taken of the fire becomes more cold then at first If fervour be wanting in thy proceedings thou also perchance wilt be more tepid then in the beginning Many grow faint-harted in the course of perseverance because they find difficulty in doing good but they do not therfore evade that difficulty for it is only perseverance that makes all easy If thou hadst the courage to begin a hard task thou mayst wel continue it that being much more easy Thou hast found so long by experience that it is neyther disproportioned to thy strength nor grace why then contrary to so long proof art thou now diffident thinking thy self unable to bear it what is eyther past or to come is not burdensome for the present do not grasp the difficulty all at once for it comes not so but by piece meale cōmensurate to the parts of time As thou wast able before to support it so art thou now and wil be henceforth It wil not be more noysome then it was but the heat of the difficulty wil remit by length of time and custome Accustome thy self to do wel and thou wilt forget to do ill Custome overcomes difficulty because it overcomes nature and what then wil grace do if custome overcome nature much more wil a wel-orderd charity in thee overcome the deordinations of nature It is better many times to fulfil a good purpose or consummate a work already begun then to begin another though otherwise more perfect because by inuring thy self yealding to a ficklenes of mind neither wilt thou performe that other Seldome can any work occur which is better then constancy in fulfilling a good purpose Good purposes are to be kept although they be not of any great regard because albeit in themselves it imports but little whether they be kept or no yet it is extremely important to be constant no wayes changeable Who is more constant in making good purposes then he who least intends to keep them If thou learnst a firm perseverance in one good against another thou wilt learn it more firmly against evil wilt not vary like time in this time of serving God O eternal truth grant me grace to serve thee eternally help o Christ my weaknes thou who with such indefatigable love tookest upon thee all our infirmities thou who never art weary with tolerating my impudent negligences grant that I may never be negligent any more nor desist impudently from thy service but may learn to brook swallow all morsels of difficulty Let me learn o Lord perseverance by thy love who when thou lovedst thine thou didst love them even to the end thou who didst persever hanging upon the cross and wouldst not desert it though the Iewes promised upon that condidition to believe in thee the Son of God who being ful of irksomnes anguish and a bloody sweat didst persist nevertheles and seeke redress by red oubling thy prayers Go too o remiss spirit tel me what must thou covet to do for thy IESVS who persevered for thee amidst the sorrowes of death and the cross who when he loved thee loved thee even to death what I say must thou covet but to do good and suffer evil These are the chief ambition of a soul that loves IESVS that which makes most for perseverance A good work presents it self what hinders thee from doing it but the trouble which accompanies it but mark wel that here concurs a second commodity of suffering evil and attend now that the good is doubled ther is superadded to this work both to suffer evil and do good Thou canst pretend no excuse for thy non-perseverance because that only hinders thee which ought to be the sum of thy desire to suffer for thy beloved If the love of IESVS were enkindled in thee all backwardnes tribulation and extrinsecal impediments would no more oppress thee then fire is with wood which forthwith more inflames it But if thou be so coldly chil that the love of God finds no fewel to feed on let thy own advantage and hope of future joy incite thee Dispair of coming off with life is wont to add valour to souldiers make them way through the thickest dangers divine hope of eternal life is yet more forcible and wil make thee more valiant and daring With this hope attempt thy enterprizes and persever cheerfully A cheerfull acceptance feels neyther labours nor trouble though otherwise the thing be laborious enough He that exerciseth himself in military games or at ball is wont to take more paines then one that hires himself forth to day-task and yet he feels it not because he takes it by way of pleasure and content If thou wilt conclude happily in the last hour be sure to begin each hour if thou intend to persever begin alwayes a new Excuse not thy negligence by indisposition of body self love for the most part deceives thee and makes thee do thy actions remisly Thy body is able to do more then thou thinkst if thy fervour of mind were but vigorous its force infusing strength even into weak and feeble limbs A lunatique person though exhausted with sicknes can do more then 4. that are sound the vigour of our mind sometimes communicates it self to the body If the infirmity of a malady can make one strong how much more the strength of grace and
not love thee o Lord who gavest us our whole creation are grateful towards robbers who pillage us but in part yea even towards dogs for guarding what is ours we love him that supplies us in our want and we melt not into love of thee who gavest as both essence and life when we were no better then nothing What greater want or penury then to have nothing yea to be nothing if God relieved us then by giving us a life and being why are we not mindful of such an almes since we are grateful to him who affords us but a mean support of life can it be judgd a more signal mercy to give wherewith to live then to give life it self benefits are esteemd much greater for coming in the nick of time when our indigency was most pressing and when what is given comes voluntarily and without paying so much as a begging for it What greater penury then to have nothing which is the greatest of all God then did us a great good turn worthy of the greatest love in relieving so urgent a necessity it is an inestimable benefit that he gave it so freely of his own accord when nothing of ours preceded which could exact it The more pressing ones want is although what is given be but a trifle it is more highly valued then when more is given in a less exigence thou o Lord when we were extremely penurious in our nothing didst not bestow a little upon us but all whatsoever we are Let us sum up all the benefits conferd upon men because it were too prolix to recouÌ„t all let us consider that which in the judgment of all nations is held the greatest and beyond all recompense and let us compare it with the least divine benefit of our creation Nature teacheth and preacheth that we can render no equality of recompense to our Parents and they what have they given us a stenchy body subject to sin and diseases and all the miseries of this life insomuch that they are in a certain manner more benevolent towards loathsome wormes then towards their children for they produced them undefiled with any fault nor lyable to the divine wrath but they bring forth their children accursed wearing the badg of sin worthy of death and imprisonment How o Lord can we be unmindful of thee and impudent in our carriage towards thee since thou gavest us all our being a body at that instant sitly accommodated unblemishd qualifyd with diversity of endowments a soul of a most excellent nature pure immortal spiritual the benefit we receive from our parents cost them but little for they gave us only of their superfluities not a whole body but a smal parcel of most loathsome matter and corruption thou o Lord gavest us all our selves our whol body our whol soul pure and unspotted which benefit cost thee no less then the expense of thy omnipotency Moreover what we have from our Parents they gave it not but thou by their meanes they of themselves gave us only a lyablenes to sin and an ill o men of future miseries What they afforded us was â—ot out of pure love to us but to their own â—mpure pleasure thou o Lord out of an excess of charity to us createdst us Perâ—hance our parents begot us against their wil they having many times a positive desire to the contrary it was not an effect of their affection that they begot us and not some other that being neither in their power nor choyse thy love o Lord created me and no other it was thy election thou o Lord beholding an endles multitude of men which thou couldst have created who would have servd thee much better then I pickt me out a poor miscreant for no merits of my own neither was thy love impeded by foreseing that I would prove more dissoyal then any of the rest and the greatest and wretchedest of sinners more ungrateful then Lucifer the first begotten of sin and Iudas the betrayer of thy Son and Anti-christ his opposite Behold o Lord for one only of thy benefits I stand not only endebted and owing my self to thee but am upon many scores end ebted how then shal I be able to acquit my self of others I owe my self wholly to thee because thou gavest me wholly to my self I owe my self wholly because thou disbursedst thy omnipotency upon me I owe my self wholly because thou gavest me my self not repiningly I owe my self wholly because thou didst it lovingly I owe my self wholly because thou didst it calling me by design out of millions I owe my self wholly because thou didst it foreseing that I would surpass all in ingratitude O Lord since I stand endebted my whole self under so many titles for one sole benefit grant that once at least I may pay my share for thy endles ones grant that I may make by way of discharge an oblation to thee of my whole hart and since thou conferredst not once only this one benefit so variously manifold but art still continuing and daily enlarging it by a perpetuated conservation this debt of my whole self is daily doubled to an infinitude be then endlesly taking my hart not for the good thy benefit works in me but for the good it effects in thee by making thee beneficial to me as also for the fruit I reap from it If therfore this least of thy favours be so great that I owe no les then my whole self upon so many several claymes for it what shal I do for my redemption that excelling my creation as much as God excelleth man in my creation thou gavest me to my self in my redemption thou gavest thee and restoredst me The II. Chapter That Gods benefits are without number BLess yet more and more o my soul our Lord and be not unmindful of his retributions whether towards his enemyes or towards his friends towards his Angels or the beasts of the field whether towards the blessed in remunerating them or the divels in tormenting them all his retributions are so many thy peculiar favours O God how am I engulphd in an Ocean of thy beneficence whatsoever thou dost is a benefit yea and my peculiar benefit The actuations and productions of light are light a light that is exposd for one mans direction illuminates all that stand about him so dost thou o light of truth o nature of goodnes and therfore because thou art beneficial thou canst do nothing which is not beneficial and it is necessarily consequent that the benefit thou bestowest upon one is not only proficuous to him but all Each best guift and perfect blessing is descending from above from the Father of lights because thou diffusest them like unto the diffusions of light thou communicating thy self to all and for all without any decrease or impoverishment A light remaining still intyre divides its beames to all and another without any prejudice to it may borrow some from its flame Whatsoever the sun darts forth is light all may see
our admiration and love towards him to decrease upon that pretense A very forcible motive also to make us love God is because he is of a loving nature No ingredient is more operative in producing love then love it self we carry a good wil towards wicked men merely upon this score that they seem to love us and we take a kind of complacence in being loved by dogs although God were not good nor our benefactor nor Creator yet because he loves he were to be loved and chiefly because he is such an ardent lover The greatnes of which love is renderd perspicuous by the greatnes of its guifts what a love must that be by which he so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son for its redemption o men what can you admire if you do not admire this that God should love the meanest of creatures with such a tender and feeling hart But let us grant that God neyther had lov'd â—s nor made us nor been beneficial to us it is our part at least to love him because he was so to others If the vertuous actions of men deserve praise at the hands even of a stranger or Barbarian and force a kind of benevolence from them shal so many feats of Gods beneficence deserve les their excess both in number and quantity amounting to an infinitude an upright and beneficial man is loved by every one even those that have not tasted his beneficence but although God had left no great monument of his liberality to others yet because he hath towards us although it proceeded not from the motive of love which cannot be done without some love we were still bound to love him yea although he were neyther good nor loving nor beneficial to us or others which nevertheles implyes an impossibility for that sole reason that he made us he were worthy of all love and respect Our Parents although they be wicked though they themselves nursd us not up yet they are to be loved and reverenced souldiers spend their lives and blood for their lawful king though otherwise notoriously naughty God is Father of all things and the lawful head of the world Neyther is his patience a light shaft to wound us with love he tolerating and pardoning us by it while we play the impudent delinquents The patience of an offender and harmer in accepting punishment and standing in a preparation of mind to admit revenge and penalty for the wrong turnes the anger of the party offended into benevolence and how can the patience of an unjust offender force benevolence from one justly displeased and not the patience of the party offended obtain love of him that offends unjustly O Lord with how good title doth my ingratitude and thy pardon exact my love but if this alone be not weighty enough to sway the ballance add to it that he is our Father our benefactour yea and beneficial towards all how much am I bound to love thee whose merits on my behalf are innumerable and love boundles But these impulsives are not the most convincing though they be severe exacters of my love I am much more engaged to love thee for thy sole benevolence wherewith thou lovest me then for all thy other benefits besides for that is the source of them all and consequently more to be prizd and thy love is so far from being exhausted that it is forcible enough if need were to redouble thy benefits and multiply them without stint if they which already abound suffised not for my salvation Thy love is equivalent not only to thy benefits already conferd but even to those in possibility if any greater be possible and comprizeth them all in it self yea if we may use the manner of speech even impossible ones for true love is not confind to the limits of a real power but imaginary wishes which though they have no place in God by reason of the perfect fecundity and allpowerfulnes of his nature the excess of his love is not therfore any whit diminished but â—e are as much endebted to him as if they were The sole love then of God alone is a more convincing motive of love then his boundles beneficence for that comprehendeth all his benefits not only now actual but possible and impossible if any such were unfesible to God There is yet another more pregnant cause of loving him then all the precedent for if we owe him more love for his love to us then for his benefits because these are only its issue and so many sparks leaping from that glowing furnace of divine charity much more must we love him for his goodnes this being the cause of love How great must that goodnes be which is mother of so numerous a progeny of loves and the stock from whence sprout so many benefits yea we owe not only incredible love to the divine goodnes for the present affection he beares us but much greater on our parts for the love he would bear us if we would but dispose our selves better and become less ungrateful and consequently more capable of a more ample charity We are not only endebted to the goodnes of God one infinite love of God but as it were infinitudes of love to an infinite God Wherefore we must love him more ardently for that he is good in himself then for that he is good and beneficial to us O Lord I love thee for thy benefits because I read reverence and embrace in them thy love and I also love thee for thy love because in it I behold adore and love thy goodnes The love of God is one perfection in God but there are many more for which he is amiable all which are comprized in the infinite divine goodnes and perfection which is for infinite respects most worthy of love I see not o Lord how my hart can cease or suffer any interruption in loving thee since thou who art infinite purely out of thy own goodnes lovedst us so incessantly from all eternity The V. Chapter That we are not able to satisfy the goodnes of God HOw do I loose my self o Lord in the consideration of thy goodnes which neyther pen nor tongue nor thought is able to comprehend if all the spirits both of heaven and hell all soules created and creable should make it their task to describe it and if each one had a sea for their inkhorn and a heaven for their paper both the one and the other would be exhausted ere they could make a fit expression of its least parcel If each star and drop of rain were so many tongues their breath would fayl them and they grow mute eer they could utter a congruous elocution If all the minute sands of the sea were changd into so many intelligences all their conceptions would prove but shallow even in respect of its least particle But what am I doing while I dare declare thy goodnes by these similitudes I confess o infinite God that all these exaggerations are ridiculous
it Where is our ambition our desire if it do not display and power it self forth upon this harvest of joyes and magazine of true riches I should take it for no smal dignity to be a sharer of Christs ignominy what then wil it be to partake of his glory if the ignominy of IESVS be glory the glory it self of God what wil that be if he so magnifyd the contumely of the cross as to exalt it upon the diadems of Emperors if he did so honour his torments what wil he do to his faithfull friends if he impart greater honour to the bones of Saints here among us then all the Monarchs of the world enjoy how much â—il he impart to their soules while they are reâ—â—dent with himself wilt thou make a rude â—ssay of the greatnes of glory how much it â—xceeds our labours Calculate how much â—he celestial globe exceeds in magnitude the â—errestrial this latter being but a point in regard of the first heaven and the first heaven another point or rather nothing in regard of the highest in whose circumference to one fingers breadth of earth so vast is the disproportion thousand thousands of miles are corresponding in that heaven The self-same God is author both of grace and nature and in point of bounty he would have his guifts in heaven much exceed our labours on earth Let the expectation of this so great a good be to thee alwaies a satiating repast Whatsoever thou seest good on earth contemn it as perswading thy self that thou shalt enjoy others in heaven excessively greater What evil soever annoyes thee fear it not as hoping to be out of its reach for all eternity Whatsoever is violently plunderd from thee grieve not as believing that all is depositated for thee to be made good out of the treasures of heaven Whatsoever thou dost contemn or relinquish for the love of God deem it not lost or cast away as supposing that it is not onely to be layd up but also restord with a hundred fold seek not to shun transitory labour thou who hopest for a permanent good Thou whose desire should animate thee to suffer in conformity with Christ upon the Mount Calvary without all hope of quitting cross be sure not to quit patience that thou mayst be conforme to God in glory with an assurd confidence of arriving to so great joy If we believe all this to be true why put we not hand to work but stand like people in a dream How is it possible to have terrene things in any esteem if we make heavenly things a part of our belief Perchance we believe not so rightly as we ought Wilt thou know how thy mouth belyes thy hart when thou affirmest that heavenly things are only great if thy fortunes amounted to the value of a thousand pounds wouldst thou not willingly give them all if thou wert perswaded that by so doing thou couldst enhance them to a hundred thousand but how doth it appear that we hold heavenly goods more valuable since we are loath even being put in mind of the advantage to give what men both joyfully and of their own accord give for the base trumpery of the earth a hireling toyles all day long for a poor salary a souldier exposeth himself to a thousand deaths for anothers kingdome and we for the glory of God and our own purchase of the Empyre of heaven cannot watch somtimes one hour pray with Christ as it behooveth Let us despise base petty trifles that we may receive immense rewards It is not so estimable in it self to receive litle as to expect great matters O lover and zealot of God be sure to thirst breath after so great a good but regard not so much thy own repose and commodity as that thou shalt there securely love God without fear of interruption and the greater thy glory is the more shalt thou love him I am bound to thank thee o God of truth for joyning the reward of our labours with the love of thee and the desire of my wil which is nothing els but thy love The VII Chapter Of suffering death HOW much o Lord doth thy beneficence transcend mans hope and expectation since those very things which he accounts the greatest of evils and natures penalty prove to thy faithfull an unparalleld benefit He esteems it the worst of evils to dye and it is a great good without which we shal never arrive to the fruition of all good Thou dost very fondly o man in declining death which is indeclinable and not declining tepidity and faultines which may be declind For death hath no evil it which life gave not the sin of Adam caused in death but was not so powerful as to make it evil this dammage only proceeds from thy sin Avoid sin culpable negligence death wil be a thing desirable Men fear little and regard les the death of the soul which only is evil and may be avoided but the death of the body which is not evil and cannot be avoided they seek to shun though it be rather to be desird then that we adhere to this wicked world O the madnes of men who abuse play as it were bopeep with that precept of Christ about loving our enemyes while they care for none but the world who hates us is our professd enemy why do we affect this fleeting life which flyes us and do not affect that permanent life which expects us Why are we so sollicitous for our temporal life which we cannot retain and neglect eternal which we may obtain we may have life everlasting if we wil we shal loose this transitory whether we wil or no and notwithstanding all this men wil not do profitably for eternal what they do unprofitably for this temporal they covet not the first and they dread the death of this second as one would do a mischief Death moreover is a rare invention of Gods mercy for it easeth us of all the molestations of this life and takes away an eternity of miseries What a pittiful thing would it be if we were for all eternity subject to the necessities of rising daily and going to bed of eating of cold and heat of toyl and sicknes of seeking our sustenance of carking caring of suffering affronts or spending our whole life in a sordid and laborious drudgery what a misery would it be if one were to be a â—orter another a husband man a third a smith a fourth a servant and this for tearm â—ithout all end or respit many that were â—otoriously wicked sought death and made away with themselves merely to avoid these inconveniencies at least let us not dread it that it may be a passage to future felicity and for both these respects let us patiently accept it When God beheld us involved by the sin of Adam in such a labyrinth of woes he in his most indulgent clemency invented for our good the devise of dying that our calamities might not
be perpetual combining in the same thing a penalty and a benefit justice mercy Therfore because death is so great a good so proper and secure an effect of his goodnes he would not have it lyable to mans free wil or the hatred of an enemy For although it be in any ones power to bereave thee of life no body not even the uncon troulable violence of kings can bereave thee of death This is the property of things of the best quality to be out of the reach of humane power not to be obnoxious to anothers pleasure If one were entangled in any one danger or incumbrance it would be no smal content to find a meanes how to evade it why do we then grieve or dread death which is the gate wherby we may rid our selves of the hazards and incumbrances of this life Many for a meer puntillio of worldly glory have sought and covetted it at least for the glory of heaven let us not fear it O immortal God who wast born not to live for thou wast life eternal as now thou art but to dye a most mortal and bitter death for me why should I that am mortal be unwilling to dye to live a vital eternal and most pleasant life with thee and for accomplishment of thy wil since the desire of a christian is to be with Christ I know not why he should not desire death since but by it he cannot come to that fruition What misery can death bring or what happines can it bereave him of who is not besotted upon the world but hath placed all his felicity in heaven but besides this ocean of content which flowes from the sight and fruition of our beloved it hath moreover this advantage that it puts us out of further danger of offending God Death then is not evil which takes away all evil But if it be evil and an enemy to mankind why do not men treat it like an evil and as one would treat an enemy I wish we would proceed in this manner with it and deal no otherwise then with a foe forecasting that we carry nothing about us which he may make booty of or give him cause of triumphing over us Souldiers are wont to secure their provisions and baggage or els quite spoil them that they may not be serviceable to their enemyes We must leave no plunder for death but if there be any thing subject to its rapine it must eyther be wholly abandoned or sent before us with a safe convoy to heaven where all will be throughly secured We must keep no spoiles about us in which it may glory but the luggage of our flesh and we must extenuate it by fasting labour and other pennances that he sieze it not entire If death be evil and adverse to us let us resist it and object a buckler by relinquishing things and all affection to them that its wounds may bite the les upon us if death be evil let us make it good by doing good Why should we dread death more then our selves since it cannot be worse then we are evil yea it is we that make it bad because we do not become good Let us do this now when we have time and may do what we shal wish at its hour we had don and cannot A little respit only remaines for labour and in comparison of eternity not so much as an instant Behold now so many years of our life are past and those which remain are no longer But death is not evil in it self but rather good and we should be very good if we did imitate it and practised what it puts in ure by dispoyling our selves of all things so that if nothing were grateful and delectable in this world it would be pleasing and savory to our pallat He only needs fear death who loves other things and not Christ He is not a faithful servant who refuseth to appear in the presence of his master If I did love thee o Lord I should not have such a horrour of death for it would be contentiue to me to behold thee face to face and cast my self into thy embracements rejoicing that thy wil were accomplishd in me otherwise I play but the hypocrite when I daily beg that thy wil may be done in earth as it is in heaven Thy pleasure was to dye not that we might be immortal in this mortality but that we might dye wel by leading a better life Grant me grace that as thy wil is to be fulfilld in my death though against my wil so I may wil and death fulfil it in a good death by a better and more perfect life I give thee thanks o most benign Lord for this benefit of death as thy wisdome hath disposed it I give thee thanks that I am to dye and that I know not when or where or how I am to dye The certainty of death is good and comfortable to me it being a secure passage to bring me to thy sight and rid me of the miseries of this life and make me despise its deceitful and counterfeyt goods What man if he have but any one grain of wit although he were sure never to experience any adversity but were to be successful in all the contingencies of this life would not contemn it and all its goods since he must needs see that he is to quit them all in death which is wholly unavoydable In which moment all past joyes all present goods now to be relinquishd are no more then if they never had enjoyd a being nay they are les conducible for their very relinquishment wil prove a torture That only which man neyther loves nor possesseth wil not afflict him in that hour of affliction The uncertainty also of the manner place and time of dying is acceptable to me that I may more certainly serve thee o God in all requisite manner time and place as thy worth and dignity doth require This is a divine disposal which breeds in us a certain sollicitude of a better life by reason of the uncertain condition of a contingent death I am throughly perswaded o Lord that I know not whether I am worthy of love or hatred and how it wil fare with me after this life neither do I covet to know because it is expedient for me to be ignorant of it according to the ordainment of thy wisdome But I will not therfore more dread death then desire thee and confide in thy mercies I accept most willingly its great uncertainty this being most certain that it is enough for me that thou art most merciful and a cordial lover of me and both canst and wilt save me if I but humbly trust in thee What imports it that I know not how and when and where I am to dye if I be assurd that thou dyedst for me and dyedst the death of the cross and at noon day and betwixt two thieves upon Mount Calvary to clear all doubt of thy love towards me that I may
love or hatred or zeal take severe punishment of thy self as being the ring-leader of all that crew Consider now out of this whether the sin of Iudas and those of Anti-christ deserve love yea or no if God had committed to thy charge the doing justice upon him who gave IESVS that injurious blow or him that spit first in that face on which the Angels love to gaze or on the accursed Arrius and Nestorius or the malignest of men Antichrist or the Father of lyes Lucifer to punish condignly their sins as justice and equity should dictate to thee how wouldst thou carry thy self towards them wouldst thou perchance sooth and flatter and seek to humour them to thy ability or rather strive to shew in the sight of all creatures how much the glory of God and his honour so often violated were prevalent to a just revenge thou oughtst to exercise no les severity against thy self for thou must needs hold thy self worse then any of them if thou makest not a counterfeyt estimate of thy own basenes and I suppose thou intendest not to cozen eyther God or thy self It behooves thee to be moved with a more severe and fruitful indignation against thy self then against the perversest of divels The divel committed one sole sin that in thought only for which he incurd eternal damnation thou hast committed innumerable and those of fact also He sind against God to whom his obligations were not so binding for an Angel did not become God nor did God suffer torments for them he did not at any time pardon them as he became man for thee shedding his most pretious blood for thy sake sealing thy pardon and ready to seal it for the future not seven times only but seventy seven more Consider now whether it would be accounted laudable to contract familiarity with that great Prince of divels seek his honour content in all why holdst thou too strict a friendship with thy self desiring thy honour procuring thy ease and seeking thy wil and pleasure in all I demand of thee once more if God should deliver into thy hands that malign spirit who hath so often deceived thee tempted thee and induced thee to sin misleading thee from the way of salvation then another who were les hurtful commanding thee to punish both according to the qualities of the losses wherewith they damnifyd thee against which wouldst thou be more cruel against him that were les noxious or the other who proved thy heavier enemy But how canst thou be so indulgent to thy self thou being more insolent towards thy self and more pernicious I do not say then the worst of these divels but then both since neyther of them could endammage thee in the least unles thou cooperatedst gavest consent thou hast often playd the seducer and enemy to thy self thou hast often tempted and proved a stumbling block of scandal to thy self I know not then with what eyes thou canst look upon thy self thou being more prejudicial and a greater undoing to thy self then Caiphas Arrius Antichrist or Lucifer O soul I conjure thee by the love of IESVS to consider these things whether they be not true if it be true that thou art a greater cross and loss to thy self then the accursed Lucifer could have been love not thy self disordinately if thou be touchd with any sense of promoting the honour of God or amplifying his glory for by how much thou swelst with the tyde of self esteem and self affection by so much in order to the effects of grace and vertues doth God flow in thee at a lower ebb and by how much thou drainest thy self of thy self by an humble self hatred so much the more wil God replenish thee with his waters of grace even to a great profundity Who then is a greater enemy to thy self then thou thy self who wilt not let God be exalted in thee But if thou wilt not hate thy self o unworthy man more then the rest of thy enemyes at least look upon thy self as upon an enemy and bear thy self as little good wil nor take too much complacence in that fit of self-prosperity and corporal delight When any adversity befals him whom thou owest a spite thou art not a little contented therewith and so must thou proceed with thy self when thy enemy is sleighted or derided it causeth joy and complacence in thee and so must it do when thou thy self art so treated One wil not make much of an enemy nor feast him at a table of delights neyther must thou do so with thy self One would alwayes be vexing and molesting an enemy sitting close upon his skirts and taking all occasions of revenge so must thou also do if thou wilt act that part for this is properly to be spiteful If thou dost not hold this tenour thou art pittifully seduced as thinking thy self not sick of self love Where Gods divine pleasure interposeth not it self thou must with a masculin courage for his greater glory kil all self affection in thee Yet out of the same motive in the practise of exteriour austerities one must permit himself to be guided by some discreet person zealous of the divine honour that so he may also offer in sacrifice an oblation both of his wil and judgment Yet thou must not frame such a conceit as if the life of self denying people and those that loath persecute themselves were harsh and insupportable yea of all others it partakes most of joy The love of God is much more light-harted then is self love If self hatred brought no other advantage besides loving God that were sufficient It is much more available that God love thee ardently then that thou love thy self God can be much more advantageous to thee and he takes content in communicating joyes to give us a fore-tast of his inebriating and beatifying sweetnes comforting us amidst the troubles of this life and recreating us by exhibiting an experiment of his deliciousnes The Apostles went rejoycing from before the face of the councel because they were made worthy to suffer a contumely for the name of IESVS Call to mind that admirable but true saying deem it all joy when ye fall into several remptations God could draw relief for the children of the Babilonian furnace from their very flames and turn their scorching heat into a refreshing dew he is also able to make adversities no wayes burdensome Further more if we rejoyce in their evils whom we hate thou wilt do no les in the miseries which befall thee and since thy crosses are much more numerous then thy crownes there must necessarily be more frequent occasions of joy then self love could ever minister Incommodities are allwayes ready and at hand commodities rare and long to be sought for wherfore he must needs have frequent occasions of rejoycing who rejoyceth in his adversities since he shal never want matter of suffering in this life Evil things are not so obnoxious to casualtyâ—s as good The
done which God wil have done according to his order or permission The XIII Chapter That we must give no eare to our own wil. HIs triumph over himself wil not be complete who leads pleasure captive unles he can master his own wil it is not enough to be rigidly severe against our senses but we must carry our selves also after the same fashion towards our soul and its free wil neyther must we debar our selves only of unlawful pleasures but also of lawful desires nor mortify only our flesh but loose also our soul that so we may gain it totally at long running Both our flesh our spirit have been found delinquents to almighty God It were a piece of injustice to punish one co-partner and quit the other to fine the servant and let the master go scot free We must do justice both upon flesh and soul not as many who contenting themselves with outward austerities are not sollicitous to reduce the interiour But since the soul is the prime criminal she in the first place must smart for it and there is no other way of sequestring her but in her wil by denying or cutting short whatsoever she likes or takes gust in The soul which hath been contemptuous towards God is worthy of death therefore it must die to its own wil in all things suffer in that wherein it hath been delinquent In nothing at all neyther little nor great must it procure or regard its interest otherwise if it be thus open-eyd it is not to be numberd among the dead Be mindful in nothing of thy own wil. Do the wil of God do the wil of thy brother do the wil of thy enemy him that injures thee rather then thy own if it may be accomplished without sin Thou wilt not arrive to a sufficient degree of mortification unles thou resign and transmit thy wil not only to God but also to man yea even to thy very enemies Be not too credulous in those things to which thy wil is carried with an impetuosity without having regard to the rule of reason but hold them all suspected although they hold forth never so faire a shew of good they are for the most part but a mere officiousnes or branchings of the sensual part which the divel makes use of to cloak his craft Let thy wil seek the glory of God and not grieve at the contempt of men let it attend and be sensible of the divine pleasure not thy own affliction let it be wholly emploid upon God and it wil find enough to do let it learn to wave all self content and proper gust though spiritual Although God relinquish thee to thy self in thy hardest pressures in thy spiritual desolations amidst the very powers of darknes assaild on all sides with tribulations and temptations thou must still persist faithful seeking no redress of comfort being ready to sustain that shock and any other inculpable calamity of thy soul so long as God shal be pleased to continue it though even to the day of judgment or for all eternity He that covets to serve God in truth must serve him gratis rather wishing and begging to be debard of all comfort deeming this abundantly sufficient if he can but conserve that place of his soul where God hath fixt his residence pure and unblemmished not permitting any thing else to enter and appear there as in the holy of holyes Thither must the high Priest IESVS only find entrance Some servants of God who were deluged with a sea of comforts obtaind by prayer the shutting up of these heavenly sluces and to be deprived of all sweetnes neyther would they afterwards admit of any such infusions though from heaven for some have not been wanting who refused Angels for their comforters For what great matter dost thou in rejecting acorporal gust which wil rather prove an affliction that bodily solace which hinders divine joy and sweetnes of spirit is too afflicting God deserves more at our hands then this For him thou must contemn all jubily of spirit and whatsoever is pleasing to nature and self wil. The service of a hireling is neyther constant nor faithful If thou serve God out of hope of comfort or relief though it be spiritual thou lovest not God himself and this comfort failing thee thou wilt often become slouthfully tepid Hence it is that we are subject to so many mutations that we are remiss that we make smal progress for as mariners hope for the wind so do we for the spirit of devotion and consolation without which we are becalmd and any adversity like a contrary blast beats us back yea we are much worse then mariners who know how to make way with a side or adverse wind Let us learn to advance forward even amidst oppositions aridities and tribulations It imports not whether thou serve God for the sensibility of interiour comfort or for some corporal commodity but only that thy service comes of les freely because requiring this gust of spirit thou sellest it at a dearer rate God is more valuable then thy gust it is better to have God then joy and yet where canst thou be o most delicious and sweet-rellishing God and the spirit shal not exult if thou discoverest thy self to it where shal thy benignity display it self the soul shal not be replenished with excess of joy but grant me that I may never wish my own joy but that thou maist be it never seek the gust of my own wil but the good pleasure accomplishment of thine O afflicted spirit if thou wouldst never seek thy own content comfort how much content wouldst thou find he that leaves house or land for God shal receive a hundred fold reward there is no equity that he who relinquisheth more should receive les He that relinquisheth his own wil and its content shal receive a hundred fold more in the same species for denying it then if he had given way to it for he doth the wil of God and shal deservedly receive a more ample recompense The more thou divorcest thy self from all gust of self wil and interest the more deliciously wilt thou rellish the divine wil a heavenly kind of tast and joy wil be infused into thy hart If God had made any one man so happy as to be in a perpetual fruition of his own wil no sooner said but done and so powerful as to be able to compass all his designes and that lawfully yea and were securely certain of the continuance of this power and good hap I am perswaded such a one would enjoy les content then another who followd his own fancy in nothing but renounced it in all for the love of God A certain contentive rellish of the wil doth accompany its fulfilling and there is no content nor complacence greater then that which God hath in the performance of his wil. If God should communicate to thee one drop of that delight of his wil which he imparts to those
repose by reason of occurrent duties eyther of life or state of life even in that kind of violence it breaths with tacit but connatural aspirations after God and these employments being ended and she left to her self she hastens to her center recollecting her self in her closest retreats with God that to her utmost she may become like the Angels who see allwayes the face of their Father and covet to see it more and more which desire ought to be as connatural and recreative to our harts as is the ayre in which they breath The XV. Chapter That the incomprehensible goodnes of God is to be loved VVHAT am I who am but an abyss of malice in comparison of thee O ocean of goodnes that thou shouldst love me like loves its like why then dost thou who art the best love me who am the worst things more amiable are loved by others thou being most amiable covetest to beloved by me the vilest and loath somest of creatures O love of the world what am I in comparison of thee who deserve to be the hatred and horrour of the world what 's the reason that thou commandst me to love thee why was it needful to lay an injunction upon this what necessity to intreat and sollicit it by so many wayes o sollicitation o most sweet voyce child give me thy hart o petition iterated and reiterated to deaf â—areâ—â— thou makest an exhibition of thy self in each of thy creatures that thou maist be seen at all turnes through the cazements of nature melting away in this most amiable demand in thy search after me Thou accostest me in each creature that thou maist beg it by them all dividing out thy love in so many wayes to gain mine What window soever I open thou as a suiter occurrest to my eyes standing behind the wall looking through the windowes looking forth through the grates If I see if I hear if I smel if I tast lo thy lovely face presents it self thy sweet voyce the odour of my God a honey comb with its honey is forthwith at hand every where suit is made for love If fower or five grave men should avouch any thing or invite others to an enterprize each one would doe and believe what they said why give not I eare to so many creatures while they all invite me to the love of my God since he hath so many vouchers of his comelines why am I so backward in belief if men allurd with the beauty of things thought them endowed with a deity how much art thou the soveraign and aggregate of all beauties more beautiful then them for thou being the source and author of it al I thou allottest to each one the pittance it hath All creatures represent thy love and beauty with silent cryes and invisible colours but what voyce or pourtraiture wil bring us to thy knowledg creatures are not able to paint thee forth All the perfections they contain seem nothing else but so many blemishes Who art thou then or where o my beautifully faire who though thou be every where present with me yet I find thee no where and though thou comprizest all yet thou art none of that all Creatures object themselves to my view as if they carried a resemblance of thee but I look upon them as a riddle Thou art not that o Lord which they delineate thee to be who though they tel not a plain lye yet they chalk thee so forth that thou art not truly what they represent In this manner I sought whom my soul loveth I sought him but found him not I wil rise and make a turn about the citty through the lanes of nature the streets of the heavens I enquired of the formes of creatures of the consorts of musique of the fragrancy of parfumes the tasts of inebriating rellishes the embracements of lovers and they all said we are not thy beloved he shines in such sort that no place is capable of his splendour he sends forth a sound but such a one as no wind doth carry a long he yealds a sent but so as that no ayre disperseth it he gives such a rellish that no hunger can bite upon it he is so inherent that no satiety can cause a separation I enquired of the earth and it made answer I am not he if the heavens of beavens do not contain him why art thou so inquisitive of me I enquird of the sea and it trembling said I am not his abyss much exceeds mine and it is no wayes to be waded through I enquird of heaven and it said I am not thy God he mounts much above my sphere If none of all you creatures be he tel me where I may receive some â—ydings of him the watchful intelligences and guardian spirits of this world made reply he made us seek him above us When I had passed a litle beyond them I found the beloved of my soul whom I could not find among creatures In this respect only I behold and find thee o light placed in the midst of lights that I am able neyther to behold nor find thee for how can I comprehend what is incomprehensible fly fly my beloved in this respect I wil comprehend thee because thou fliest me I know so much the more of thee the more I know thee not to be knowable and I approach nigher to thy knowledg the more thou recedest from my comprehension I sought in my bed and the retirednes of my solitude night by night the beloved of my soul The splendour of things beautiful in respect of thee is a night the seemlines of the heavens is a night the very beauty of the sun its refulgency and any other I wil not say created but falsly imaginable comelines is a night If each star were more resplendent then the sun and the sun himself did by as many degrees exceed these stars as there are sands of the sea and motes illustrated by the sun he would be an eye sore in respect of thee nor would be more conspicuous then the stars now are in presence of the sun But to what purpose do I bring these deformed beauties of visible things these rustick forms even of the sun morish lights Let us draw into resemblance these spiritual and candid ones whose lovelines is such that an Angel appearing to the devout Father Iohn Fernandez of our society the sight so affected him that he fainted through excess of joy was not able to support himself affirming that all the beauties of this world were but blemishes and deformities in regard of this Imagin then that the comelines of that Angel were as much greater then it is as there are â—â—omes in the aire and that each Angel were endowed with such comelines there being millions of millions of them or in a manner a number numberles sum up all this comelines of them all into one it would be ill-favourd and ugly in comparison of the beauty of God and I say not
ornament of speech since the word of God not unlike a sword the more naked it is the more deeply it pierceth much deeper then if it were sheathd in the richest phrases of humane eloquence and it is the sincerity of the speaker not the gorgeous attire of Rhetorique which makes it majestical I aymd sayth he at the self same in this Treatise which the zealous Bishop Salvianus mentions in his Epistle to Salonius We who love deeds better then words saith this holy Prelate seek rather after profit then applause neyther do we labour so much that the vayn pomp of the world be praysed in us as wholsome and substantial matter in our writings we covet not to set forth a fine dress but to give redress This was the reason sayth my Authour why I was not curious at all about the stile which I thought was not to be uniforme but attemperd to the nature of the subject it treated of for a pious and sincere matter is to be handled without all pompousnes and Oratorical figures and I preparing it for my self slender ornament would serve the turn Thus much he and all this I have inserted as pertinent to teach my Reader how little regardable these things are where spirit and truth sway the ballance the hart being not touched but the fancy onely tickled with such vanities What no judicious reader will condemne in him will not I hope be mislikd in the Translatour so far as wauing all matter of stile he attends to the englishing of the Authours sense yea words in as proper phrase and expression as he can he being a Translatour not a Paraphrast Which how farr he hath attaind must be left to the readers verdict and that be what it will he stands not much upon if the fruit he aymes at be produced in his soule following in such a fair view of truth as it expresseth her footsteps to a sincere Adoration in Spirit and Truth misled no more by the world and its impostures The Division of this Work In the I. Book are containd those things which concern the Purging of our soules In the II. what appertains to its illumination and the Imitation of Christ our Lord. In the III. what belongs to a most perfect practical performance of our actions In the IV. what helps to enflame us with a most ardent love of God and elevat our soules to the divin Vnion OF ADORATION IN SPIRIT AND TRVTH THE I. BOOK THE FIRST CHAPTER The Deceitfulnes of a secular life THe proceedings of men in this life◠intercours are a continual piece of forgery as voyd of credit as ful of imposture Be not too zealous of death in a mistake of life for the H. Ghost hates dissimulation in matter of discipline An imposture is so much more pernicious by how much the affair in which it is used is of greater concern and consequence Men deem nothing dearer then life how then can they endure to be deluded in it how can they brook forgery in matters of Spirit and worship of God which are infinitly to be prizd above life it self An imposture concerning life is the worst of evils It is too dangerous and formidable to be seduced in a thing of all others the most important and pretious Men suffer not willingly their eyes to be cheated and how ill do they mannage their busines if they suffer their minds They fret and chafe if they be cozend in pretious stones and how much more ought they concerning themselves How careful and vigilant are those that traffique in gems least a counterfeyt be put into their hands insteed of a true one no man will buy a jewel unles the seller give both oath and suerty that it is not adulterous This is the madnes of men they are content to set a false rate upon their life though not upon a stone they love not to be deceived in their eye-sight but can disgest a greater fallacy in their mind in their life yea and in their heaven We take it very ill to be cheated by another though but in smal trifles and we willingly cheat our selves even in the price of our selves We love neither to hear nor tel a lye and yet we make both our selves and our life a continual lye O miserable who are both the deceived and deceivers of our selves and we bear this two fold misery which men so much abhor with patience and we tolerate this double infamy in a busines of such consequence whereas we should brook neither in a trivial one If thou judge it a heynous crime to deceive thy friend and holds it the greatest of wrongs to be deceived by thy friend what ground or pretense in the world canst thou have to cozen thy self or be cozend by thy self who shouldst be dearer and faithfuller to thy self then any friend whatsoever But we willingly entitle our losses through our own default which nevertheles are the heavyest and in a double kind with the fair name of patience and animate our selves to our own destruction by not only holding our selves unworthy of blame but worthy of Congratulation The covetous man would take it ill if one should cozen him in the fading goods of fortune he would deem it an intolerable injury if one should stuf his Coffers and bags with dirt or rubbage in lieu of gold or silver and why doe we not onely endure but even affect to be cozend by our selves in the goods of vertue and grace nor grieve that our life is soyld with the staines of vices and defects or that our vertue is hypocritical our charity but forged our mortification superficial our humility counterfeyt A main reason of this endammagement is because we doe not pursue or rather throughly persecute self love lurking in us and put not this domestique enemy to the sword It 's no charity to save the life of an enemy to the prejudice or endangering of our own by giuing ear to his pernicious counsels We harken to our appetits as to so many Oracles although they utter nothing but lyes He that lends his ear to soothing flatterers must needs give credit to many things that are false and he that attends to the fawning charmes of self love shall ever and anon be deceived Tell me o my soul if a court or Senate of wise and cōscientious men should all with joynt consent determine a cause and the malefactour alone pleading nevertheles guilty and convinced by witnesses one as foolishly fond as desperately wicked should stand out against the verdict of the whole Court as unjust and partial wouldst thou believe this one wretch rather then so many wise and upright Senatours Why then dost thou follow the toyes and fancies of self love and its brutish appetites how darest thou oppose its verdict alone to that of God of his Angels of the Doctours of the Church of ancient Philosophers of reason it self nay even of thy own conscience all these condemning for naughty what it approves for good yea
condemning its very dictamens and defires Perswade thy self that that is false which God holds not for true which the Angels disapprove which the Doctours impugne Philosophers refute reason disallows nor squares with Conscience All these find this self love this crafty fox ful of wiles guilty of forgery We are ful of deceyt because ful of self love and so much the more perniciously ful by how much it is not onely a domestique cheat but so linkd to us yea so engrafted in us that it never leaves us nor gives us the least respit from errour Hence not onely custome but even prescription in cozenage hath so hardend us that what is done viciously we maintain many times as done very prudently yea and according to gospel and seek to sanctify by the doctrine of Christ what is clearly repugnant to reason The mist of ignorance which man walks in renders him sufficiently miserable he needs not be missed with forgery yet ignorance is but a petty and inconsiderable misery its darknes being easily dispeld as soon as the light of instruction shines but the night of errour is so wilfully and pertinaciously blind that it is incapable of being illuminated with any precepts O it were hartily to be wishd we were onely ignorant and not seduced also This folly and imposture of worldlings raignes in a manner among all sorts and conditions of them Let them account themselves never so wise let them be the prime Doctours and professours of Vniversities they are idiots and ill-maximd and unworthy of such titles unles they be good and vertuous Pick out any one of these such as all the world holds for an Oracle of knowledg if thou shouldst but once see this man voyd his curious cupbords and cabinets of jewells and vessels of gold and throw away pearles and pretious stones to fill them up with dirt and dung couldst thou perswade thy self that this were a wise man who so prizeth the latter and misprizeth the former And how then shall he be accounted wise who not once but allwayes is stuffing his hart with aspirements to honours with desires of riches and pleasures and contemns the love of God the treasures of divine grace the merits of Christ yea God himself All which incomparably more surpass worldly honours treasures pleasures then gold doth dirt as much to wit as God the Creatour surmounts his creature What imports it if thou sayest that this proceeds not from his ignorance in undervaluing things but that this man knew well enough the difference betwixt spiritual things and temporal a thing which no body can doubt of though his proceedings be contrary what I say wil this avail for nether wil he be excused from madnes who should say that he knowes wel enough the value of gold above other things and how base dirt is in comparison of it yet nevertheles keeps dirt courts it embraces it kisses it yea and refuseth no danger nor labour in search of it but if gold be tenderd him he throwes it away and daigns it not so much as a look Certainly this hidden madnes and visible darknes is far more to be admired and thou darst not call such a one a wise man or well in his wits least thou should be houted at by all having lost thine owne How much more will he expose himself to the censure both of laughter and madnes who professing that the spiritual treasures of grace are much to be preferd before all the goods of this world covets nevertheles the latter and rejects the former Could he be accounted a learned man or sound in judgment or a good Christian who should cast the B. Sacrament of Christs holy Body out of a golden Ciborium consecrated to its conservation and place there insteed of it a piece of clay And how deserves he the name of a wise man who expels the Divinity it self out of his soule where it took complacence to reside as in its tabernacle and sets up in its place not dung but more filthy vices and sordid desires as the idols of his licentious devotions Therfore we must conclude that there is no wisdome no truth to be found in a worldly life The dread fullest instruments of revenge which Christ shall make use of to punish the sensles in the day of judgment shall not be the conflict of confounded elements nor the fall of the stars nor the eclipse of the sun nor the conflagration of the world nor the frightful voice of the Archangel nor that shrilsounding trumpet of God nor the countenance of the angry judge but truth alone Truth I say which shall then be rendred illustrious to all though now as it is veyld with our naughty desires we contemne it But although truth be certainly found in a spiritual life yet not altogether refined from the dregs of forgery both by reason of tâ—e subtilty and soothings of self love for soothing and flattery every where corrupts and sophisticates truth as also the wiles and malice of the divel who labours by all meanes to destroy created truth since he cannot the increated Therfore Christ our Saviour recommends to us as the glory of Euangelical perfection that we adore God in spirit and truth The true God ought not to be worshipped with a false life The onely begotten Son of God is truth and he that will be the Son of God must love truth and possess himself of it Wherfore whosoever evading the precipices of the flesh treads now the plaine paths of spirit let him not hold himself altogether out of dangerunles he walk the roadway of truth And to the end thou mayst follow this more securely take these admonitions which will teach thee to adore God and serve him unfaignedly in uprightnes of hart and make thee understand what truth speaks least some deceit mislead thy spirit but rather doing truth in charity we may increase in Christ by all our proceedings The II. Chapter Of the Truth of the Spirit DO not think that thy life will be rendred any whit more unpleasant and tetrical by the fellowship of truth it is a mere aspersion to say that truth is bitter and unsavoury A false imputed nick name must not make us out of conceit with a thing in it self most delicious Do not frame this discourse If the very outward name of truth be so bitter what may we judge of its interiour rellish if anothers discourse concerning it be noysome what will our own study and practise of it be if it sound so harshly to our hart to our conscience to our whole life Make not I say such illations for it is not the fault of honey if it tast bitter to a tainted pallate One that is giddy thinks the earth runs round when it stands stock-still We judge of every one by our own misdemeanours and seek to patronise our humane frailties by ascribing the same to the Divinity Truth is innocent sweet and displeasing to none but the câ—â—nal and such as are displeasing to God
Incarnate for love of thee was it such to remain with thee in the ever B. Sacrament was it such for thy sake to embrace death lo it is one the self same wil which hath done all this for thee and which now orders that thou suffer this affliction trouble griefe or injury He ordaines both out of the same motive of love and for the same end attending with much sollicitude what wil make most for thy good But if it made wel for thee that God daignd to suffer torments want and ignominy that thou mightest not suffer them thou must also perswade thy self when he calls thee into the lists of suffering that it is very expedient and wil prove for the good advantage of thy soul That most excellent act of his wil which made him become man for our sake merited throughly at our hands a preparation of mind to undergo some hard task if he should think it expedient why doth it not also merit that we be conformable to him since he covets nothing but for our good it was our duty to suffer much that in something at least we might comply with his wil we seing it now accomplished in much why shal we not willingly suffer somewhat what canst thou wish better then to wish and have what is best and this alone is that which he thy God who is best both in himself and to thee wils and covets God is infinitly powerful infinitly wise infinitly good and benevolent he loves thee far more then thou dost thy self he desires far more seeks thy good he knowes much better how to compass it he is of force to remove all obstructions and to effect what is conducing to that end what is thy meaning then when thou takest on and grievest for some cross event when thou repinest at some malady wrong vexation misfortune whether appertaining to thy self or another whether publick or private doth God err and is deceived or doth he afflict us out of enuy and malice did his omnipotency fall short that he could not go through with what he intended to avert this which thou deemst a loss it happend not through any weaknes in God or malice or deceit but out of his power providence and immense goodnes why dost thou reject and seek to annul what the divine attributes ratify and make the subject of their employment Put thy self into the hands of God that he who created thee to his glory may conduct and govern thee he orders all to this end and without all doubt wil bring thee thither unles thou frustrate his designes Covet not to be governd according to thy own fancy He that makes a journy by sea takes not upon him to steer the ship but leaves that entirely to the Pilot when a storm ariseth then is he most tractable and wil neyther do nor permit any thing to be done contrary to the others appointment Dost thou hold God les skilful in ruling the world then a pilot in steering his ship what thou permittest then to a man who is to land thee safely in thy harbour why wilt thou not permit to God who is to carry thee to the port of heaven God knowes most exactly wel how to mannage his family the world I mean he needs not thy advise leave all that care to him he wil carry thee to the land of salvation God is either propitious or angry when he sends thee these crosses so disrellishing if propitious why wilt thou not acquiesce to thy own good and add thy own suffrage to those things which make so much for thy advantage if he be angry thou must give way if it be but to mitigate it An angry man if any contradict him waxeth more angry if no body cross him he is presently calme in like manner God will be pacified if thou not only hold thy peace and brook it but also be conforme and thankful O sensles man how darest thou say I wil not have this or I wil have that being thou knowest not what wil make for thy good why dost thou refuse to suffer crosses injuries humiliations perchance thou hast forgotten that thou art a sinner or rememberst not that God can turn these afflictions and humiliations into instruments of glory the hatred of the brethren and that inhumane sale of his dearest child occasioned safety to Iacob and glory and a kingdom to Ioseph that was sold for although Consuming envy made the brethren sel Their brother to the just all falls out wel This is the work of grace c. as devoutly saith the great Alcuinus God in the heavenly chimistry of his beneficence knowes how to extract great good out of ewil and this is the chief art and master-piece of grace Why dost thou repine at the loss of thy health or goods or of any one 's that concerns thee for eyther they were to be laudably expended and then God wil accept of thy good wil in lieu of the fact and wil also augment the merit of thy patience or to be sin fully wasted in riot and vanity and then thou hast reason to congratulate with thy self because such a stumbling block of offence is to thy hand removed out of the way Esteem thy self to stand in a superiour degree to thy wil and content and that thou art created for much greater matters Thou art not made to thy own glory nor to enjoy thy own wil nor pleasure nor to save thy self alone nor to enrich thy self nor advance thy fortunes nay nor only to enjoy God in his kingdom thy end is more sublime then all this thou art to witt created to the glory of God which was the but and scope of his wil and power in creating all things O end of a high elevation and it maist thou compass by suffering whether it be in ordinary labours or extraordinary torments Thou art not thy own but Gods nor born to thy self but to him so neyther must thou aym at any thing but the glory of God and how to pleas him and that his wil be accomplished in thee That wil only prove fuel for the fire of purgatory whatsoever nourisheth in thee thy own wil. Covet nothing whether it be spiritual consolations or other guifts though very holy but what God covetteth above all since he wisheth thee more happines and sanctity then thou canst thy self by this meanes thou shalt enjoy though it be not to be sought for continual comfort All the afflictions and miseries which annoy man in this lifes intercourse consist in the wil because it stands not in a true conformity with the divine The harts of men are disquietted eyther because they have not what they would have or because they would not have what they have wherefore he that quits himself of all self wil quits himself also of all trouble He that stands parallel with God in willing or not willing shal possess perpetual joy because he shal perpetually enjoy his wish for that is alwayes