eminent ways but judging our selves unworthy thereof and content with little our Saviour shall please to give us we must co-operate humbly and faithfully with that small portion of Grace we have already and not grow idle wishing for those eminent Graces wherewith perhaps our Souls shall never be beautified This is one of the chiefest points of humility to be content with that little portion we have in the state of Grace and judge our selves unworthy of God's favour 'T is true there 's nothing we ought so highly esteem as Grace and its increase in us and desire it of God with incessant prayers but this must be with perfect submission to his Divine will and pleasure that we may not disturb the peace of our Souls On one side I behold my extreme misery and I find my self so depressed that all my natural strength and endeavours do what they can to the utmost can never bring me out of my self On the other side I burn with desire to be wholly for God by living a supernatural and spiritual life It is to you O Divine Spirit I address my sighs the infinite source of all Graces you know I have a longing to live this spiritual life in the exercise whereof I shall find the true practice of Divine Love by which I shall satisfie my ardent desires to be wholly for Jesus and shall live no more after my natural inclinations and the Maxims of human Prudence But I see how impossible it is for me to attain this unless you vouchsafe to assist me with your illuminations against my darkness with your strength against my weakness with your continual supplies against my relapses For how often O Divine Spirit have I begun this supernatural life and fallen from it conquer'd by my Nature and worldly temptations Draw me after you so powerfully and continually that I may no more return into my self but may follow your attracts with perseverance I will follow you dear Jesus in the states of your mortal life in annihilations contempts poverty and sufferings And if I lose the sight of you in those obscurities which sometimes cloud my Soul yet let me not lose courage Provided I continue in your ways that is in the esteem and love of the true Christian Life you will not be far from me it being impossible that Jesus annihilated and suffering should not be near to a Soul suffering and annihilated Well then though we may lose the sight of Jesus the light we have in Prayer leaving us though we feel him not by sensible influences yet we are assured that he is near us if we be in his ways by self-denial and a love of humiliations for his sake O how happy is a Soul to be content to follow the annihilations of Jesus without the feeling of his persumes and sweetnesses She does practice the purity of love in this condition For to be deprived of light and consolations which is very harsh to Nature and suffer it contentedly is one of the most excellent acts of a spiritual life which consists chiefly in a perfect resignation to suffer as well inwardly as outwardly when God pleases I am very sensible by experience that there 's a vast difference between thinking and doing talking and living this true Christian life When we meet with no repugnance we find it not difficult to practice Virtue whereof the Idaea's are as sweet as the Acts are bitter of such as consist in privations and sufferings I am in a state wherein I feel repugnances and am resolved thereby to humble my self the more and keep the peace of my Soul by an entire confidence of the succours which the Grace of God will vouchsafe unto me I consider that nothing was more seeble than the Apostles before Pentecost They hid themselves abandon'd their Master in his sufferings and Peter deny'd him but after they had received the Holy Ghost he infus'd such strength into their Souls that they became powerful and couragious to admiration CHAP. XV. That 't is impossible to live this Supernatural Life by Human Prudence THe supernatural Life is a continual mortification of depraved Nature 1. For 't is certain First That we cannot live this excellent life but by annihilating our sense and reason 2. Secondly That this life is wholly according to the Spirit which cannot be but the Spirit of God which inspires the Soul with his influences and sacred motions 3. Thirdly That the Soul which lives this life must be elevated above sense und reason whether it be in Prayer or the practice of Virtue which cannot be done but by offering up her self to God as a continual Sacrifice That though oftentimes w must do things sensual as to eat and drink yet these must be done as Grace directs us And other things according to reason as to love our Relations and Friends yet this must be only in God and as his Oracles do dictate to us O life of Grace how art thou a continual death and mortification Who lives Christianly lives a Martyrdom Tota vita Christiana Crux est Martyrium However 't is a joyful Martyrdom for solid joy cannot but make glad the Soul where Grace inhabits O that this fundamental truth of our Salvation did once well sink into our hearts The Son of God and eternal King of Glory leaves the bosom of his Father and becomes man to live and die in infinite humiliations Jesus gives us life by his death He puts us in a state of Grace by ruining himself according to Nature He purchases Eternity for us by yielding up his temporal life And the Evangelist expressing his death doth on set purpose use these words Emisit Spiritum He sent forth his Spirit Without doubt he sent it into the hearts of his faithful Servants to the end they may learn to live by his Spirit to him who died for them So says St. Paul Misit Deus Spiritum Filii sui in corda nostra ut qui vivunt jam non sibi vivant sed ei qui pro ipsis mortuus est What remains then but that we banish our carnal Spirit which carries us on to sensual delights although sometimes not sinful Let us love the Spirit of penance of suffering of self-denial and humiliations Gerson hath an excellent saying By how much the more Nature is mortified by so much the more Grace is infused We must often call to mind that the Grain of Wheat cast into the Earth except it die cannot bring forth fruit If we do not die to our selves and the World and the Spirit of Nature we can never become perfect Christians nor bring forth the fruits of Divine Love We must be as nothing before men that we may be something in the sight of God Why should the Disciple be above his Master The Spirit of Grace and the Spirit of Nature do continually jar and war one against the other The exercise of the spiritual life will afford us light to discern their different motions but when
sufficiently and fewer that practice it in Purity and really aspire to form the true image of Jesus in them In my second Prayer I did apply my self to consider how the Son of God being eternally in the midst between the Father and the Holy Spirit came down from Heaven to be a Mediator between his Eternal Father and us Sinners He tells us that no man can come to Father but by him and that he is the way which leads to Happiness And is it not a sad case that men should so much go astray This is a low and humble way and they puff'd up with Pride will march over mountains in ways above them This is a poor penitential suffering way and they are for a way easie delicious rich and commodious Is it possible to come to the bosom of the Eternal Father except we will march by the way of his Son There 's no other way to come to him and if we take our own way at every step we go farther from him O my God how long shall my Soul lag behind meerly in a way of nature When shall we O my Soul enter into Dispositions truly Christian and conform to the Dictates of a supernatural Life O Jesus my Saviour Redeemer my Exemplar my Way my Light 't is only by following you and your Divine Maxims that we can enter into the light of Life Of necessity then we must pass by Jesus Crucified to come to the Divinity of the Father and enjoy Jesus Glorified We must take up our Cross and follow him if we will enter into Glory My third Prayer was a continuation of like Thoughts I then understood that there 's no entring into Society with the three Divine Persons or arriving to such a height of Prayer as thereby we may live in them a Divine Life but by entring into communication with Jesus Christ and conforming our Life to his example This is a general Rule without exception The Life of Jesus was a severe self-denying Life and ours ought to be of such an austerity as may not ruine our health or dull the Spirit but humble the Body to elevate the Soul In a word we must daily endeavour to humble and annihilate our selves having only in our eye the Will of God The Eternal Father cannot take delight in any Soul that does not endeavour to resemble his Son It concerns us therefore to examine our hearts to see how they stand affected to Sufferings on all occasions If we cannot relish them but flie and complain 't is to be fear'd nature does possess us and not the Spirit of Jesus Christ Water in a glass remains quiet but if it finds the least passage it tends to its own element from whence it can only be kept by force In like manner a Soul that has overtures of Sufferings afforded her will find an inclination to embrace them if Jesus Crucified be her center It matters not by what means these occasions to suffer happen whether by the imprudence of Friends or the malice of Enemies Or her own neglect or any other accident she layes hold on the occasion to unite her self to the abjections of Jesus as to her center Happy is that Soul which is in this temper Grace and the Spirit of Jesus has wrought it in her In my fourth Prayer I went on to entertain my self with the wonders of the Son of God I admir'd that being in the Glory of his Father he descended to our Miseries that he might glorifie his Father in a new manner by purchasing for him such holy Souls who being animated with his Spirit after his example would be in love with Sufferings for Gods sake I saw clearly how the Son of God by his Eternal Birth is most glorious with Infinite Perfections and how he became Man to be capable of Sufferings for our sake And that we must follow Jesus in his Humiliations if we will be partakers of his Glory O what dark Souls have they who see not these Glorious Truths We live here a sensualor worldly life or at most do follow the light of reason rarely do we live a Christian and very rarely a Divine Life A thousand times happy are they who dear Jesus are enlightned by you the true Light of the World Jesus Christ cloath'd himself with a Mortal Body that he might suffer and be Sacrific'd upon the Cross and we ought to bear part with him The Saints who have known and tasted of his Spirit have Martyr'd their Bodies by a thousand Austerities Others have wasted away by degrees in the flames of Divine Love All have been desirous to suffer more or less But we are afraid to hurt our selves and are too apprehensive to endamage our Health For whom do we keep our embraces or for what is it that we are so desirous to live long upon Earth 'T is a vain fear to think we shall shorten our days by our endeavouring to live a Divine Life in our Mortal Bodies Seventh Day I Began my first Prayer by a peculiar instinct of the Holy Spirit bringing often to my mind those precious words of St. Paul God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our Hearts crying Abba Father And then I found that a Soul assisted with the extraordinary infusions of the Holy Spirit is elevated above her self which is the effect of the gift of Wisdom freely communicated whereby she sees and tasts the ineffable Mysteries of our Religion O what a gracious gift is this What a great favour is it when God is pleas'd thus to communicate himself unto us It then seem'd to me that the faculties of my Soul ceas'd their ordinary operations and the obscurity of Faith as it were vanish'd this Divine Wisdom elevating them in such a manner which they cannot conceive who know not by experience to a very sublime way of working much above their ordinary proceedings The Soul stands wondring at it and can hardly believe she could arrive to such a point of Perfection Then a Divine Light gave me to see at once my unworthiness to receive the Graces of God his Goodness and Mercy to bestow them on me and the merits of Christ whereby they were purchas'd I was much amaz'd that God should vouchsafe so great favours to so wretched a sinner And I did melt in acknowledgements being humbled in my self with an entire confidence in the merits of Jesus I continued my second Prayer and this Divine Light increas'd in my Soul and discovered the favours God vouchsafes to Souls of which there are many degrees according to the proportion of their Purity of heart 1. They see the Deformity of Sin clear enough to conceive a horrour and detestation of it and know confusedly the Christian Virtues the Mysteries of the Sacred Humanity and Divinity 2. They see more clearly some Christian Principles as an Eternity of a Happy or Miserable condition after this Life that our Salvation is our Principal concern and the one thing necessary aend that all
things else are but deceit and vanity 3. They considering the Mysteries of Jesus begin to discover the beauty of his Humiliations and Sufferings which yet is shadowed with some obscurity 4. Their eyes being more open'd they behold distinctly the Beauty of the Sufferings Contempts and Poverty of the Word Incarnate and thereupon conceives a great contempt of the World 5. In persuance hereof they contemplate the Divine Mysteries and if they be Faithful to imitate Christ Crucified they will arrive to a great knowledge of the Divinity 6. Then if they keep close to Purity of Heart they are wholly in a manner taken up with the Divine and Humane Mysteries of Jesus being very sensible what an Infinite Mercy it is to be deliver'd from the darkness of that ignorance which is in carnal men who have no feeling in the things of God or their Salvation 7. Their Light increasing they more and more discover the Perfections of God in the Creatures more clearly without comparison in the Sacred Humanity of Jesus but yet more transcendently in their Source the Divinity sweetly applying themselves thereto with much Felicity Behold this is what God gave me to know â—n a little time and this Light will increase if I be Faithful to practice the Virtues of Jesus Crucified who is the True Way to the Divinity the center of the Soul and her perfect repose In my third Prayer I found my self in a disposition to admire the operations of the Holy Spirit in our Souls God our Creator works in them what he pleases he having endowed them with a certain capacity extraordinary to receive his extraordinary Divine operations This must needs be extraordinary to our Faculties which before had great difficulty in believing the Mysteries of Faith and with great obscurity and with little or no gust But no sooner is this Light darted into our Souls but we see and tast them with great delight not as in Glory but in a very sublime and extraordinary manner The Meditations of many years cannot attain to this 't is a special gift we must receive from the Father of Lights to which we can only dispose our selves by Humility and Mortification O what Happiness is it for a Mortal man to be thus elevated and Spiritualiz'd by the Holy Ghost Let us therefore O my Soul humble our selves profoundly for the Spirit of God takes not up his Mansion but in a humble heart I know we ought to go whither God is pleas'd to Call us and not refuse his Gifts under the pretence of a counterfeit Humility But I know also that 't is not displeasing to God for us to be careful how we entertain extraordinary attracts least we be too ready by innate Pride of heart to walk in ways above our capacity In my fourth Prayer I consider'd the admirable preventions of the Holy Spirit in the conduct of Souls How he awakes us from the sleep of sin and draws us from the love of the World to unite us to himself by undeserved preventing Graces What wonders are there unknown to Carnal men which pass in these preventions I know nothing that may work in us more Love or more Humility For would any but a God of Infinite Goodness look with an eye of Mercy upon a Soul all black with Sin Ingratitude and Infidelity This miserable Creature is beloved of God having nothing to invite him but on the contrary to avert him from us and if his exceeding love had not surmounted the Infinite hatred God has of sin we had perish'd for ever without a Saviour To Love us Redeem us and prevent us with such Mercies does only proceed from his incomprehensible Goodness I am astonish'd to see that any Soul believing these admirable preventions should not be enflam'd with Divine Love What can more humble a poor Creature than to consider that we are nothing but Misery from which we can never free our selves unless God prevent us with his Grace and Favour What can more enflame us with Divine Love than to consider that God then loved us and prevented us with his unspeakable Mercies when we were just objects of his Eternal Hatred O my God who can comprehend the riches of your Infinite Goodness O my Soul acknowledge with thankfulness the great obligations thou hast to Love God with all thy Powers and Loving him to Praise him to all Eternity Eighth Day IN my first Prayer this thought presently possess'd my mind that all Power is attributed to the Father all Wisdom to the Son and all Goodness to the Holy Ghost And seeing these three Divine Persons are in each other by a Communication of the same Substance and Infinite Perfections the Eternal Father is the Power of the Son and Holy Ghost the Son is the Wisdom of the Father and Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is the Goodness of the Father and the Son A pure Soul that lives in the sublime exercises of a Supernatural Life becomes a Mansion for the Divine Persons and receives from them the impressions of Power Wisdom and Goodness The Power of the Eternal Father dwelling in her gives her strength and a Christian generosity to conquer all the obstacles of Perfection and she discovers that many difficulties are rather imaginary than real insomuch as the Principal and the most difficult of Christian actions is to believe that they are possible and that nature shall not suffer so much thereby as is imagin'd The Wisdom of the Son cummunicated to her affords her Light and Overtures to defend her self against the apparent reasons of sensual nature which damp many excellent Spirits that they can make no great advancement in the ways of God because they have too much of humane consideration and too little of this Divine wisdom which discovers to us the Beauty of Contempts and Sufferings in following Jesus The Goodness of the Holy Spirit imprinted on her makes her conquer the Inclinations of corrupted nature which is more or less according to the degrees of Grace in us He that is Holy let him be Holy still but we shall never rise to the heighth 'till we come to Glory In my second Prayer I considered that the adorable Trinity is the Treasury of all Beings Increated and Created That in respect to the Divine and Uncreated Beeing the Eternal Father is a Treasury that is exhausted by communicating all his Infinite Perfections to the Son and Holy Ghost But in respect of Created Beings the Sacred Trinity is an inexhaustible Treasury because all the whole World or ten thousand more cannot exhaust or diminish the least drop of his Infinite Power and Goodness I was almost equally taken up with both these wonders That a Million of Worlds drawn out of the Treasury of Gods Omnipotency should not make the least diminution of his Power is certainly matter of admiration But much more that the Grandeurs of the Eternal Son should be so elevated above the World as to exhaust the whole Substance and Perfections of
Divinity O how great is the dignity of pure Souls when they Communicate O how low and abject are all the Grandeurs of the World They are a meer Nothing compared with this For what Glory is comparable to that of a Soul intimately united with the Supream Being My God how delightful and transporting is the sight of the Wonders and profound Secrets wrapt up in your Mysteries how they penetrate the Soul you disclose them to This Union with Jesus in Communion is inessable For as the Father and the Son are one in Unity of Essence the Word and Humane Nature one in Unity of Person so the Soul that is one in Jesus partakes of both the Unions Divine and Humane Jesus is in her according to both his Natures and she is All in Jesus and while she does all things in him he works all in her he Prayes Adores Loves Suffers Labours insomuch that this perfect Union produces a certain Unity between God Jesus and the Soul and between all their operations It settles a kind of Partnership and Community of Goods and Possessions between them In a word it imports more than can be expressed Now this condition must needs be most Holy and Divine where God works in the Soul and the Soul in God In me manet ego in eo And the Alliance between them grows continually streighter and closer proportionably to her increasings in Virtue in this Life and receives its ultimate Perfection only in Heaven O amiable Jesus with what a profusion of Goodness and Love you entertain our Souls in this Sacrament You conceal your Presence under the External Species to give us occasion and advantage to exercise our Faith which beholds you so much more clearly as you are more secretly and obscurely present Again on the other side you manifest and shew your self by innumerable effects of your Grace and Divine Sentiments which you breath in the Soul to excite and exercise our Love What can a Soul do when she sees her self so prevented so convinced so pressed by evident instances and experimental proofs of your endless and unwearied Bounty What can she do but Love Love without stint render Love for Love how many excellent things might be said upon this Subject But how can those Sentiments be expressed that can hardly be conceived CHAP. XI The fourth Effect of Communion is to Confer the highest Love OFtentimes before and after Communion I was taken up with Contemplating the Perfections of God Which being one and the same in themselves yet they are different in our manner of conception and the verity of their effects Now when any one of them discovers it self it appears in full Beauty and Majesty and all the other seem to sink in to it and lend all their Ornaments and Excellence to increase its Lustre An instance hereof we have in the Blessed Sacrament where the Divine Love displayes all its Magnificence and the other Attributes contribute to that design the brightest of their Charms and Perfections Eternity Immensity Wisdom Omnipotence Justice Mercy and whatsoever is most eminent and adorable in the Divine Nature are present there and attend upon the triumph of Love Each of these Perfections espouse the Interests and put on the Inclinations of Love which are Liberality and Magnificence and accordingly operate in a Soul when Love makes his triumphant entry at the time of Communion For Love as its proper effect produceth in the Soul a reciprocal Love Eternity imprints continuance and perseverance Immensity spreads the Affection and gives it an unbounded extent wisdom sheds round about a Super-natural Light to guide its good purposes and illustrate the ways of Virtue Omnipotence inspires an invincible strength to surmount all difficulties and obstacles Thus in Communion a Soul does not only receive the impressions of Love but of Love attended with the Lustre and Excellencies of all the Divine Perfections It is observable that Jesus Christ together with his Eternal Father sent the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles to replenish them with Love in the same place where he had given them Himself in the Sacrament So that this Divine Sanctuary was chosen two several times to be the Theater where the two greatest Actions of Love were represented that ever the goodness of God exhibited out of himself The first in giving us his Son to reside in our Hearts who from all Eternity rests in his own Bosom and thereby enabling us to live Divinely by him as he lives by his Father The second in sending on us the adorable Spirit of the Father and the Son to be the knot of the Eternal Espousals of the Soul with her God to Beautify her with his In created Light to warm her with his Sacred Flames to animate her with his Heavenly Force and Virtue and in a word to render her entirely Spiritual And both these Actions are perpetuated in the Holy Church when at the same time we are Feasted with the precious Body of the Son of God and inebriated with the Spirit of his Love O who can conceive the admirable Commerce and Caresses that are interchanged between Jesus Christ and pure Souls in this Divine Sacrament The World which discerns nothing but by meditation of the Senses is too gross and stupid to comprehend them It thinks that Souls which are escaped from its snares and dis-engaged from its business lead an idle and unprofitable Life it fancies they do nothing because their Actions are not seen that their Fire is extinguished because it does not blaze in the eyes of Men. But on the contrary they resemble those Mountains full of Sulpher which carry vast Globes of Fire in their Bosomes though they break out but at certain times and then they are not only seen but whole Provinces feel the Conflagrations Towns and Villages are Burned and Fields covered with Ashes In like manner those retired Souls which burn inwardly with Divine Love and for the most part shine only to God and themselves yet when the command and service of the Lord excite them to External Duties they produce such extraordinary Effects that numbers of Souls are set on fire with their Virtues Example and Instructions In this kind we have had many great Servants of God who having conceived a thousand good desires in their retirement and inflamed with Heavenly fire by the frequent use of the most Holy Communion issue from their retreat and this Sacred Table like Lyons breathing nothing but flames and setting all on fire about them Such have made the great Conversions of Sinners changed the face of whole Provinces and Kingdoms and all this performed only by one or a small number of such Servants of God who appeared so powerful in Works and Words that all their Actions seemed to be so many Miracles Here we must observe that this Interiour Fire in a person not sufficiently retired within himself or that from time to time is not careful to lay on more Fewel to nourish it I mean to
me forthwith to set upon the practice of this life hidden crucified despised which you have taught us by your example that I may truly say with St. Paul Absit mihi gloriari nisi in cruce Domini nostri Your Cross dear Jesus is my Glory and I will glory in nothing else Honours Pleasures Riches I declare my mortal enemies seeing your property is to incline me perpetually to deviate from those ways to which Jesus calls me I abhor you as enemies of my Perfection Ah dear Saviour make me partaker of your life humble poor despised or let me live no longer in this life of mortality When Heaven shall be my Habitation I shall be content to be in Glory because there you are also in Tryumph but seeing that on Earth you would not be but in an abject condition I desire there to be with you also Alas I march but slowly to arrive at Perfection however in reality I would fain be wholly humbled both interiourly and exteriourly as your Divine wisdom sees best for me If it was your will I would search after external humiliations for I find no better food for a Christian Soul Perhaps they will prove hard of digestion to me yet for all that they may become by use profitable and delicious O dear Saviour seeing it is said of you by the Evangelical Prophet Saturabitur opprobriis Give me my fill of opprobies and abjections Ravish with your sweetness and consolations those who know well how to use such favours As for me let my repast be with Gall and Vinegar because by their relish I shall be rendred more like unto you O Jesus why was you circumcised O Mary why was you purified Your hearts were not sullied and yet you submit your selves to the abjections of sinners because to be despised was the object of your most tender affections There were never two hearts more full of the love of God and never more inflamed desires after humiliations Seeing then that one is the measure of the other if we will testifie that we love God we must also love to suffer for him How unjust are our complaints against those who undervalue us and how unreasonably are we disquieted when we are scorn'd by others We ought rather to be troubled because we are not despised enough and thus it would be with us if we had a heart entirely Christian 'T is true Grace can only infuse such inclinations into our Souls Nature eggs us on to the contrary And 't is my unhappiness that I who write this shall I fear fall short hereof in time of trial For I am altogether frail and good for nothing and for ought I know what I have said or done which appears so beautiful may be rotten within witness my often relapses which sufficiently tell me what a poor abject Creature I am and how much I deserve to be despised CHAP. II. The foundation of true Christian Humility WHen I consider that God is all in all that he possesses in himself incomprehensible perfections that he has created and provided for us infinite good things I cannot but acknowledge that all Honour all Glory all Praise all Adoration is due unto him O how just a debt is all this from us to the Divine Majesty When I consider O God that I am a pure Nothing that I have in my self an inexhaustible Mine of imperfections and miseries that I have committed great offences and am yet liable to more unless prevented by Grace I acknowledge that I deserve to be the scorn of men all sorts of opprobries and disgraces all maladies of Soul and Body Darkness punishments Temporal and Eternal to be afflicted mocked persecuted by all creatures as Executioners of Divine Justice And I look upon my self as the Mark whereat should be aimed these Arrows of deserved indignation God can never be sufficiently honoured loved exalted glorified and I can never be enough debased hated despised and persecuted I ought to have not only this humility of Spirit but likewise a will and affection to suffer for God always esteeming my self worthy of all scorn and contempt though never so publick if it may conduce to God's glory and the good of others For if I be honour'd as my condition requires if I do not debase my self below the meanest Vassals 't is because the Order of government forbids it and would not be expedient for those who might abuse this condescension However as for me I ought to have this will and inclination and believe 't is the place is due unto me Alas dear Saviour I cannot be acceptable in your sight unless I have an humble heart and this I cannot have but by your grace For if all natural good proceeds from your bounty much more must all supernatural grace flow from the pure Fountain of your Mercy and if you are the Giver of all grace doubtless principally of true humility which is so repugnant to nature that there 's nothing she more abhors than Humiliation Seeing dear Saviour all good proceeds from you the glory thereof ought solely to be rendred to you I ought to take no complacence but in you rejoycing in that you glorifie your self enriching my poverty with your abundance When I see persons afflicted poor distressed lame deformed I confess dear Saviour these humiliations are my due and if you should inflict any of them on me I would adore and love your Justice and for what you have bestowed upon me I adore and love your mercy I will never complain because no Creature can do me an injury I ought not to look on the designs of men whose intentions oftentimes are only to hurt to revenge and solace themselves with others miseries but to have an eye to the purposes of God which are to chastise me to better me and to humble me The Jews put Jesus Christ to death out of revenge and envy and God the Father had a design thereby to save Mankind I will not hereafter hunt after Applause and Honour for I am resolved not to follow the inclination of depraved Nature but following the example of Jesus Christ who suffered for me I will desire poverty contempts pains and uniting them to his sufferings I will earnestly beseech him according to the multitude of his mercies to have pity on me If we would once seriously endeavour to know our selves the beams of Divine Grace would make wonderful discoveries in our Souls without which 't is impossible for us to see the depth of our miseries In this Dungeon lies a prolifical Seed of Treason ready on all occasions to conceive and bring forth all sorts of iniquity O that 't is not sufficient to be without the black tincture of actual sin We have the source thereof within us and certain vitious inclinations deeply rooted even as we find some Weeds in Gardens so fixed that their roots seem to reach the very centre which will never hardly be entirely pluck'd up but daily they appear a-new and keep us in
let him but heap up his own miseries and lay himself thereon as Isaac was on the Altar and then sacrifice himself by a voluntary annihilation with the fire of Divine Love and God will be glorified thereby When a Soul is left to her self in Prayer so that aridities and desolations do darken her wonted light and deprive her of the usual feelings she had of God and Goodness she may make her address in these or such-like words My God! I am nothing and I am contented with all my heart with this dealing with me it is your pleasure thus to mortifie me and I have no other will but yours You have sometimes vouchsafed unto me illuminations and consolations which were dear unto me but now you are pleas'd to deprive me of them blessed be your name I am contented with your pleasure If poverty or ill success or sickness afflict us let us apply our selves to God with these or such-like words My God! I can do nothing of my self but I am well pleased with what you do unto me sacrifice me wholly to the grandeur of your Majesty whatever reluctance I find in Nature upon the Altar of my miseries and imperfections Little Isaac ready to be sacrificed by his Father's hand might have said these or such-like words I had hopes that in after-times I might have been signally instrumental for the glory of God and that according to his promise out of my Loins by continued Generations should come the Messias but I sacrifice all this before-hand and reflect on nothing but the Burnt-offering God is pleased to make of me by my Father's hand St. Lewis had hopes to establish the glory of Jesus Christ in Palestine but seeing his Army defeated he might comfort himself in saying O my God! seeing 't is not your pleasure to have it so but have humbled me and my Army by the Pestilence and Sword of your Enemies your will be done I submit unto it I behold the generous Enterprises of your Servants and their great Attempts and bless you for them but my comfort is in the consideration of my objections which have brought me to a state wherein I see God alone and possess Him in the denudation of all Creatures after the example of Jesus Christ Christus non sibi placuit whose work was only to do your will Let us not then so much disquiet our selves with our imperfections They are indeed but an ill brood and deserve not to be loved but we must bear them with patience seeing they serve to debase our selves in our own eyes and to conform us in some sort to the infinite humiliations of Jesus Christ crucified for us Man was created in the state of innocency now he is born in a sinful condition He has then had two opposite ways to conduct him to Glory The first was a state of Exaltation happy and enjoying all Creatures freely but the second is a state of Abjection in misery and denudation of all Creatures He that will walk a third way attempts above the condition of that from whence he is fallen and that provided for us after this life CHAP. X. The way how to arrive to perfect humiliation I Conceive three deprivations necessary to effect this First the deprivation of all exteriour things as Riches Honours Pleasures This is the first advance a Soul must make to draw near to God for as long as there remains the least inordinate affection to these things she can never make any great progress in finding God being fetter'd as it were by other affections and so cannot have perfect possession of God being excluded by the Creatures which more or less take up the heart When necessity or charity require it we may have the real possession of these things and live only in disposition of spirit and affective poverty However it will be matter of joy to be freed from them because for the most part they rather hinder than advance us towards union with God And if we have not a great care Nature will cheat us with a pretext of Charity and helping others which is but a good illusion for sometimes they who have the less Riches have the more charitable hearts 'T is good counsel to forsake Riches and Honours when it may be done conveniently but when by secret tracts of Divine Providence they forsake us 't is our duty to possess our Souls in patience and be contented which is in a manner better than if we our selves had left them especially when we believe these losses happen'd by our own fault and imbecility for this brings us to a greater abjection and self-contempt which is the centre whither we ought to tend If there was nothing else good in poverty but this that it mortifies our liberty and independance whereof naturally we are so amorous 't is a great happiness to be enrich'd therewith When we are out of Employment and Honour in the world we are look'd upon as unprofitable and easily forgotten and forsaken by our best Friends 't is so much the better for our humiliation This is the second deprivation that we must suffer O the great Grace that is necessary to carry on a Soul to God when we are despised by our Friends whereby they become rather the subject of affliction than affection to us Without doubt we have a strong inclination to them to whom we are so glew'd that without some great and special grace we can never mortifie our selves therein without some attach to conserve such friendship They are happy occasions whereby we are depriv'd of our Friends without sin in losing them we lose a great upholder of self-love in us St John Baptist when very young left his Father's house to live in a Desart with God alone Great Saint they are Saints whom you forsake I know that very well says he but they are my Relations that have an affection for me O what a violence is this to nature For when an attach to Friends especially if virtuous seems more spiritual and reasonable than any other affection to mortifie our selves in this is an extraordinary Sacrifice to God and only granted to such Souls whom he carries on to great perfection But we must pass further yet For there 's a third deprivation to lose our selves which is to be esteem'd as Fools for Christ's sake according to that of St. Paul Nos stulti propter Christum To love to obey and be in subjection to have no reason and yet to renounce our own reason and to enthrone Faith in our Souls for direction O how the pure light of Faith discovers to us that we ought to be well pleased to have no great natural parts but to be as it were good for nothing For the view thereof if it come to the heart does powerfully annihilate the natural inclination we have to be esteemed To consent willingly to be abject and despised is a great means to empty us of this self-love and according to the measure of this evacuation
a Prayer of Desires which I may call a Hungring after God For my intellectual Will had a strong Appetite for God without any Production of other particular Acts of Love or Complacency c. as when we have a longing after Nourishment without a Desire of this or that but only we have a hungry Disposition In this state the Soul only Thirsts after God as known by Faith in a general manner This Prayer was very Intellectual my Natural Appetite had rarely any part in it I neither sent up Sighs nor Ejaculations and it seem'd to me to be compatible with some Affairs and did continue though the Soul had Distractions in the imagination and understanding Methought this Prayer was wholly Spiritual for I know not how it came into my Soul nor what it did there only I felt a Hungring and Thirsting after God and it seem'd to me that I might still hunger after him though I did possess him This Prayer may be of long durance without breaking the Brain but we must be dead to Nature whilst it continues I felt also in my self a Hungring after the states of Jesus Christ the possession whereof is absolutely necessary to the Purity of Love and Infallibly disposes us to it Whosoever desires pure Love must have a desire of them also the one not subsisting without the other Therefore at present instead of fearing Poverty I desire it Instead of Fearing to Suffer I have Inclinations to it And my delight is to take my Cross and follow Jesus This kind of Prayer did appease Interiour Combates and Struglings in me and I found in my self some assurance of a Suffering Humble state where God will have us live purely of Him and for Him What is more purely for God than that which has nothing of self in it Grace carries us to a Love of Poverty and what seems contrary to our particular good which we relinquish voluntarily that we may advance the sole Interests of God A Soul that lives this Life lives in Purity of Love and participates of the pure Virtues of Jesus Christ O what generous Resolutions must a Soul have to Love God purely She must deny her self to please God only There 's no living a Life of Grace without a continual violence to our natural Inclinations by taking up our Cross to follow Jesus We confess O good Jesus that except your Grace always prevent and follow us we shall never relish well this Sacred Hunger of Sufferings and Humiliations and Poverty which is some small participation of your Abjections It often comes to pass that God who opens his Liberal hand to fill all Creatures with his Blessings is pleas'd to satisfie this hunger he has rais'd in a Soul by communicating himself to her in such a manner that she finds her self wholly contented and full of God This fulness of God being once tasted the Soul is ravish'd with Joy and Sweetness This disposition sometimes so totally possesses all the Powers of the Soul Understanding Will Memory Imagination that there 's no room for other Thoughts to enter being wholly taken up with God Prayer then is a feeling of God filling the Heart with Joy and Contentment O when will it please your Infinite Goodness to infuse into Souls some little participation of this Fulness that they may purely rejoyce in you who only can give us this satisfaction This is a satisfying Fulness indeed that leaves no place for other desires This Prayer is rarely granted unless to Souls much mortified and well advanced in the ways of God For a Soul must be emptyed of all Creatures before God can fill it When a Soul finds her self thus satisfied with God she must yield her self passive to the workings of Grace and she will feel in her Interiour such a content and sweetness as will render disgustful to her whatever is not God I find this disposition different from that which ordinarily we receive by Union with God This satisfaction being a more profound and intimate possession of God making all Comforts from Creatures even most pleasing to us become distastful in comparison of those Joyes that ravish'd the Soul in this disposition This Satisfaction and Contentment does sometimes Exteriourly show it self the Senses being so affected therewith that if such persons imploy themselves about any sensible object they do it as if they were a sleep The Dispositions God is pleas'd to give me increase in me daily a new desire of Solitude and Contempt of the World where I find nothing but Impediments to my Union with God And seeing all my desires tend that way whatever diverts me from it is displeasing to me It seems to me I am now no more fit for Worldly Affairs and I look upon my self as an old piece of Houshold stuff that is good for little or nothing but the Fire for methinks God would have me do nothing hereafter but burn with the Sacred Fire of Divine Love Or like a poor Criple who cannot work for his Living I must die of Hunger That is my Soul having a continual Hunger and Thirst after God must die to all things but God himself her sole repose and satisfaction CHAP. XV. Of Infused Prayer OUr Blessed Saviour has been so Merciful as to give me to my thinking some understanding and experience of infus'd Prayer In my Morning Prayer I found my self in the presence of God in silence with Admiration Reverence and Peace This took me up a long time and though some Temptations arose in Inferiour Nature yet the Superiour part of my Soul remain'd united to God without any prejudice to her Interiour quiet This Peace and Tranquility was greater than ordinary more Solid and more Assured I conceive also that what God is thus pleas'd to infuse into us be it Light or Affection Peace or Love 't is hidden from Deceits of Nature the Temptations of Satan and the noise of Creatures For God immediately infuses it into the center of the Soul without the Ministry of our Senses and so is not lyable to their onfets and vicissitudes but always remains entire as long as it pleases God to continue his operations I also conceive very well that the Interiour of Soul is a Sacred Mansion where God resides and does his works Independant on all Humane Industry and endeavours There he sometimes manifests Himself and his Perfections sometimes Christian Mysteries after what manner he thinks best It seems to me that the least Ray from his presence is enough to make known to us what he pleases Illuminet vultum suum super nos This is a very great favour for God to converse with the Soul alone in her Interiour I am now no more astonish'd at what the Saints affirm that their heart is a Tabernacle where God dwells with him and they enjoy him in a wonderful manner Nor that Souls of much Prayer do this without labour and almost continually for receiving so much and labouring so little I do not wonder at the Facility
the Will of God If I have not a great care the Devil will deceive me and make me delay to my own ruine CHAP. XX. Of the different Caresses God vouchsafes a Soul in Prayer THose who practise Prayer know by Experience that God unites Himself to the Soul in different manners all most intimate most pure and full of Sweetness Oftentimes by the pleasing Attractions of his Goodness and Mercy so delightful to the Soul that for the time she in a manner enjoys a Heaven upon Earth Sometimes God unites Himself to the Soul by the Rigours of his Justice trying her with interiour and exteriour Sufferings so that only the supreme part of the Soul remains united to God the inferiour part being in a Suffering condition Sometimes God unites himself to the Soul by his Sanctity his Bounty Power and other Perfections and to the end all these Unions may be pure it suffices that the Soul render her self passive to the Operations of God in her whether sweet or bitter comforting or afflicting with Respect and Affection 'T is observable that to live this Divine Life it is not necessary to find no Repugnance from sensual Nature it suffices if we continue firm in this state by the Superiour part whether Grace could only advance us and where we cannot subsist but by being dead to all Creatures He that will live this life must resolve to suffer All the Interiour Commerce between God and the Soul passes principally in the Will the Understanding is not so capable thereof but the Will receives the more intimate more pure and more perfect Communications being more proper for it The Understanding herein is more lyable to Illusions the Will is more assured in her way and the Devil cannot counterfeit what passes in her in the feelings of pure Love For the Soul that has experience of the effects of pure Love cannot easily be deceived From hence it comes that the Purity of the Will is the principal Disposition for the Prayer of Vnion be it ordinary or more sublime by the powerful influences of preventing Grace This Purity is altogether necessary God being not pleased to work these Wonders but in a purified Soul And this Purity consists in willing nothing but Gods good pleasure being dead to all other things contenting her self with the orders of Providence God finding the Soul thus purified especially in her Will takes up his mansion in her Interiour where he exercises his Divine Operations putting her into divers states acording to the different Designs he has upon her Sometimes he is pleased to inflame her Affections with Divine Love and to kindle this holy fire in her Breast manifests to her his Divine Perfections Other times he puts her upon the Cross and exercises his Justice for her greater good Sometimes he hides himself the more to purify her and make her dye to whatever is not God Otherwhile he gives her Councels to advance her in Perfection and then if she has not been faithful to his motions he gives her interiour Checks of Conscience Sometimes he enlightens her Understanding to enflame her Will and the Soul being retired within her self finds her Divine Bridegroom working something in her to which she is to be purely passive and adhere in all simplicity of heart to his gracious Operations Being thus retired into the Cabinet of her Heart she is elevated above her self and all Creatures and being united to God though he send her Sufferings she is not taken up with them but Divine Love she feels his Caresses is inricht with his Gifts and imploys all her Intellectual Powers to Love and Glorify her Well-beloved Here is her ordinary abode from whence she descends not to her inferiour part but for necessity and enjoying the Embraces of her Divine Bridegroom she adheres to him by pure Faith and Love without being diverted by her Imagination in intellectual Contemplation I cannot but think that a Mistress of a House that had a King and Queen in her Closet willing to converse with her would have a care not to divert her self by other matters and quit them to wash dishes in the Kitchen What strange Incivility would this be yea what Infidelity would it be in a Soul that is honoured with the Presence of God in the Cabinet of her Heart to have her near himself to converse with her and to ravish her with these Spiritual Delights which are ineffable Souls that are thus favour'd of God if they quit him for exteriour Imployments and temporal affairs neglecting the Presence of the King of Glory for some inconsiderable Business by this strange Neglect or Contempt of his special Favours must needs be guilty of deep Ingratitude O my Soul be thou faithful to the Divine Calls thou art too much favour'd of God considering thy too frequent not complying with his Graces He calls thee to himself his Attracts are powerful and sweet let us quit Temporal things and leave them to who will take them fear not we shall want nothing having God in possession If Divine Providence dispense to us with so liberal a hand the great Favours of God's Spiritual Graces let us not think he will deny us his lesser blessings which concern the Body and are as nothing in comparison Let us betake our selves to Prayer and never leave it for that is our great and sole Affair The End of the Seventh Book BOOK VIII Some Maxims of great Importance to conduct us in a Spiritual Life CHAP. I. To have above all things an extreme Horrour of Sin THere is nothing of greater Concern to us in this World than to manage well our Love and Hatred to which Passions our Will principally owes her Motions Our Love ought wholly to be fixt on God who is an infinite Good and our final Happiness Our hatred ought to have no other Object but Sin which is an infinite evil and utter ruine of our Souls Love makes all things easie and what is done with great Love is of great value in the sight of God Who knows to love cordially knows how to do whatever God requires of him seeing Love includes in it all Perfection Hatred also makes all things easy for from a torrent of Hatred commonly flows an inundation of evils He who really and from his heart hates an infinite Evil that is Sin will be reveng'd on himself by severe Penance and fly from it with such a Horrour and Detestation that he would sooner cast himself alive into Hell than commit a Sin that breaks Friendship with God A Soul that sees clearly the enormous Malignity of Sin and how it fights against the great God of Heaven and Earth to annihilate Him if it was possible will easily conceive an implacable Hatred against Sin and abhorr it to the utmost with an irreconcileable Enmity knowing well that Sin can only separate her from God her final Happiness This hatred ought to possess the Soul with permanency and such extensions as not only to preserve her from