the life of Iesus after what manner he pleaseth This is a principall point of Christian piety The very mysteries of our faith acquaint us with this truth and discover unto us the designes whereby the Son of God would advance us to a participation of his Mysteries and the severall estates of his life The Son of God becoming man by incarnation takes possession of the nature of man of our bodies and of our souls by which he acquires a right to his nature to advance and appropriate it to himself after what manner he pleases as by this work of love he took humane nature upon him assuming body and soul which he appropriated to himself and elevated to all the greatness of the divinity communicating to it for ever the person being life and nature of God In like manner in the works of grace whereby his divine mysteries are honoured Iesus chooseth such souls as he may dwell in by love or after what manner he pleaseth otherwise he appropriates them to himself by his grace he advances them to adherence and union of spirit with him and by a particular indulgence establisheth them in a communication of his greatness To this end he applies and employes his power to which a Christian ought to be most vigilant and attentive that he may alwayes continue in the subjection he owes to Iesus Christ to accept receive and bear the effects of his power This Principle of truth and piety is grounded upon the common doctrine that all that Iesus Christ did he did for us and all that he is he is for us He saith the Apostle became poor for our sakes although he were rich that by his poverty we might be made rich meaning that Iesus being God became man and took upon him our meanness infirmities sufferings death the severall conditions of our life to withdraw us from our meanness enrich us with his divine graces and advance us to a participation of the severall estates of his life blessedness sanctification and salvation Hence we may take occasion to consider the greatness of Iesus he is our fulness in his annihilation in his poverty he sufficeth all for God gathereth together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth It is the greatness of his mysteries that they are capable of communication to us and can admit the sanctification of our souls as it is our glory and happiness to be able to participate of the grace estate and mysteries of the life of Iesus Christ. This is the first designe God hath upon us when the Son of God living an immortal and eternal life in the bosome of his Father took a new and mortall life in the womb of the Virgin his Mother He desired nothing so much as to give us his immortall life and to abase himself to our estate to elevate us to a participation of his greatness and the rather because as he honoured his Father by the several estates of his new life his hidden life his suffering poverty death cross obedience subjection in all the estates and mysteries of his life so he will have us to honour him in participating of the estate spirit and grace of the same mysteries For this reason in his Church and of all qualities and vocations he chooses souls and calls them to an establishment in the participation of his spirit and a communication of his new life a life of grace such as is wholly singular and proportioned to the eminence dignity and sanctity of a Christian calling All this is an effect of his divine mercies the fruit of his sufferings it is our glory to be called and elevated to this happiness as it is our duty to keep our selves in a disposition and capacity to receive and bear them according to the designes and intentions of the Son of God All those then who are desirous to live according to Christian piety must make it their main business to continue faithfull and humble in this subjection that they may be ready to go when they are called and to receive when they shall be rewarded We come now to the Dispositions whereby this estate may be attâ—ined CHAP. IX Certain dispositions necessary for the devout soul that would participate of the grace and estates of the life of Jesus Christ. THis estate of interiour piety which puts the soul into a subjection to the power of Iesus Christ and a capacity to receive and bear the graces and estates of the life of Iesus is altogether suitable and necessary for those who seek perfection as being proportioned and conformable to the designes and order that God hath established in his creatures In the creation of the visible World adorned and embellished with so many severall creatures God hath created Angels and man to contemplate so perfect a work to admire the excellencies and to honour the Authour of such miraculous productions He hath done the like in the creation of the new World that is the establishment of his Church wherein Iesus Christ chooseth souls and formeth spirits who are employed in considering the works of love operated by him upon the Earth for the salvation of mankind and honouring the Authour of so many Graces As God hath created a great number of Angels different in perfection and order and as some conceive in species also to whom he hath given severall gifts and graces as well as severall ranks in Heaven that they may honour by these diversities of estates perfections the divine qualities and severall perfections of God for the Seraphims as Thomas Aquinas affirmeth adore by estate and by grace and contemplate by the light of glory the uncreated love of God the Cherubims his wisdom the Thrones his Stability and so of the rest The eternall Word having accomplished the ineffable and adorable work of his Incarnation having finished that of our Redemption and created in this naturall World a new World that is the Church puts souls into it who by the conduct of grace are employed in consideration of the works which Iesus Christ operated on Earth And amongst the rest he hath chosen many who by their severall estates and perfections continually honour the severall estates of his life and adore his actions and perfections humanely-divine and divinely-humane This must needs be an undeniable truth for if the Angels and the Church triumphant are continually and eternally employed in admiring and adoring the life estates and Mysteries of Iesus Christ shall not her Sister in the Church Militant have the same rights employments and duties It is not to be doubted and certainly seeing that love hath obliged the Sonne of God to these lownesses and makes him ours for ever for he shall be man eternally and eternally our Iesus our head and our All it is but reason that we be alwayes his and render him perpetuall honour and homage This is he that operates in our souls this is the estate whereto many are called It
the care a Christian ought to have to do all his actions according to his vocation and to maintain himself in the order and conduct of God NExt interiour dispositions necessary to Christian perfection it is convenient to speak of the exteriour to make our perfect Christian see how he must comport himself to be perfect in all things We have already spoken of the care we must have to appear vertuous and exemplary and to walk uprightly as the Apostle sayes according to the truth of the Gospel Next we have shewed how all his actions must be squared to the Law of God subject to his conduct which is the Law of his divine inspirations Lastly we have proved that to do actions worthy of God and conformable to his sanctity and the state of Christianity they must regard God and have no intention but to please him It remains that we shew what is the foundation of perfection the most considerable in Christian piety that is how all our actions should be done according to our vocation The life of man is a circle that comes forth from God and must return to God God alone is the Principle of our being of our life and of our action as he is the beginning of them so is he the end thereof He is the Principle does all in us he is our end and recalls us unto himself so that we have all of God and are recalled back to God for the creature bears a right capacity and inclination which can never be annihilated which causes it to subsist calls it back to it 's God there to adhere as to its repose and ultimate perfection Herein we find two things remarkable which belong to our subject one that God is the beginning of our actions the other that he is the end He is the beginning of our actions because there is no good in us which God does not of him we have the motion thought and will to do well he gives us the effect of it and not only gives us the power to do it but himself does it in us so truely that he is more the Authour of a good work then we our selves and according to the Prophet we should say to God Lord thou hast wrought all our works in us It is God saith Saint Paul that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure implying not onely that God gives us his grace and good motions which joyned with our consent effect the work but that by grace God is in us after a new and speciall manner united to our souls which adhere to him and by this union and adherence God fills the capacity which the soul hath to good and to vertue and operates in her and by her the action of vertue but so that it is he who operates more then we We operate saith Saint Augustine but it is God who operates in us this operation Thus is God the Author of our actions and the beginning of them whence it follows that he is also the end of our being and operations the end of our being because he is the Creator thereof for according to the order of nature that which is the beginning of a thing is also the end thereof and by the order that God holds in his loving operations he cannot act but he must be the end of his action and as he is the beginning of the being action and perfection of man so is he the end thereof This Principle teaches us that as God alone is the end of man so he alone gives the meanes and prescribes the order that he must keep to come to God his end For as the Creature hath not power to draw it self from nothing so hath it not the right to propose an end to it self nor to prescribe to it self the order way and meanes to come to this end that appertains to God who alone can give the being propose the end and prescribe the means And when God hath prescribed the end and ordained the meanes thereto yet cannot we follow the way nor keep this order if God himself doth not act in us conduct us and work in us what is necessary to attain our end for he alone is the beginning of all our actions he performs both the will and the deed We are his Workmanship saith St. Paul speaking of God created in Christ Iesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them Hereby the Apostle sheweth that God hath regulated the life of man ordained all his actions prepared all the good works wherein he wills that he should employ himself that it is God who does all in us and that we are his workmanship so all our safety consists in this that God is our end God alone hath ordained the meanes to arrive at our end God alone must conduct and operate in us works necessary to that end whereto we are called Herein consisteth all the happiness of a Christian all the duty of our souls whence all the piety all the care we must have consists in these three points which contain the foundation of all the rest to tend towards God continually to continue in the order and conduct of God and to entertain all the divine operations to let God act who conducts us in that order he hath established over us and operates in us incessantly the works which he prepared from all eternity In these three points consisteth all the perfection of the life and actions of Christianity Therefore we must take great care herein though they are unknown to us and their use appear difficult yet we must endeavour to know them and demand of God light and grace we must follow them with fidelity and embrace them with vigilancy in all things even in the very least for in what concerns God his glory and will nothing is little all is great and inestimable Here we must consider how we may be deceived in a subject so important that we may avoid the snares prepared for us on all sides All the evill that can befall us herein comes either from the Devill or from our selves and more from our selves then from the other for we are the principall instruments of our own ruine The Devill incited by his ordinary malice being crafty and having a thousand subtle wayes to annoy us continually considers the wayes of God over our souls and by the little knowledge he hath thereof can easily represent something of Gods Ordinance over us of his designes and wayes to save us Having considered these he goeth about he makes it his perpetuall business to persecute us and precipitate us The first effect of his malice is to ruine in us the works of God and to shut our heart against the motions of grace he particularly labours to divert us from the Ordinances of God and to make us go out of the order and conduct which he knowes God hath established over us He employes a thousand surprises
to further his treachery he makes use of our selves of all the Creatures which are as the wise man sayes snares for the feet of fools he offers us pleasure In brief his malice omits nothing that he can make use of to ruine us To those souls that have a little desire of good some fear of God and who have made some progress in vertue he redoubles his circumventions and concealing his aim does not represent to them either sin the World or pleasure for that would advantage him nothing but he proposes change he gives them divers desires he inflames their hearts with fervours and transported Devotions he inspires them with other actions with other exercises with some other manner of living which in appearance carry's some great perfection but look'd into narrowly all their motions and manners will prove to be nothing but deceit and that the Devill strives but to engage the soul in a labyrinth and disorder Those who ordinarily consent to this temptation we find to be rash inconstant and easily drawn aside to quit their vocation self-wil'd adhearing much to their own judgement disturbed in spirit unquiet in brief they are full of perpetuall agitations the marks and effects of a malignant spirit and temptation By these effects we know that the Devill with all his subtleties onely seeks to separate the soul from God and from the peace of the spirit and to draw it from the order and conduct of God that he might lead it as he would knowing the soul being out of the order and conduct of God is in danger and altogether loseth her self or else for some long time estrangeth her self from God For it is a generall maxime that we are nothing but what we are in God and that going out of the order and conduct of God we cannot but fall into evident danger and pernicious disorder And therefore one of the greatest cares the soul must have is to beware of these secret crafts of the Devill to keep her self in the conduct and order of God in what condition or vocation soever she be For as the Devill labours onely to separate us from God our end and perfection seeking continually to annihilate in us as much as may be the works of grace and to draw us from the order of God so must we be very vigilant to please God to receive the effects of his grace his divine operations and to live in the order of God according to our vocation and estate Not onely the Devill deceives us and separates us from God but also the love of our own selves and our own Inclinations This seed of sin which remains in us is the principall Authour of our harm and that which most violently drawes us from the order of God The experience is but too ordinary the reason evident for the order that we ought to follow is an order of grace that advances us above our selves to God Self-love depresseth man and converts him wholly to himself the order of God conducts him to unity for God is unity Self-love leads us into a Labyrinth the works of God are alwayes pure holy and perfect for God is alwayes like to himself he operates in us purity and sanctity for he hath chosen us that we should be holy and without blame before him in love saith Saint Paul The love of our selves destroyes the work of God instills nothing into us but impurity and imperfection By this love Adam went out of the order of God and forfeited the grace which God had given him We do the same and worse for by sin we are enclin'd to our selves and the Creature we are brought to take that in our selves and in the Creature which we ought to take onely in God Our pleasure repose abundance and all other good that we are capable of which we ought to seek in God and receive at his hands we seek in our selves and in the Creatures separating our selves from God who is our end we draw our selves from his conduct we annihilate in our selves all his divine communications and operations of grace to turn to our selves and the Creatures Grace and all the motions of God have no effect in our souls but to unite us to God to draw us from our selves and to separate us from all the Creatures that we might no more love or regard them then according to God and as much as they are in God And the operation of God in us drawes us so to God as it makes us leave and hate as much as is needfull both our selves and the Creatures so that we regard them not but as they are Gods and use them not but as if we had forsaken them according to our Saviour's words If any man come to me and hateth not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brethren and Sisters yea and his own life also he cannot be my Disciple CHAP. VI. What the Directors of souls ought to be FRom all that we have said may be drawn two very considerable documents for those that seek their salvation The first that we must not willingly fill the soul with a multiplicity of desires nor seek to do sometimes one thing sometimes another for all that is well and all that is good is not proper to every person and although it seem good yet is it not alwayes desirable Some will say we must have prudence to make choice but we must express our selves more christianly or clearly and say that when any good is presented us to practise we must lift up our eyes to Heaven and demand of God that he would be pleased to let us know what we should do for to speak properly there is not any good which is pleasing unto God further then in that he takes pleasure that we should do his will and suffer him to act and that we persevere in the order whereto he hath predestin'd us The Christian therefore who would assure his salvation must be disposed to do all sorts of good works His heart must be open to God to receive all divine operations and holy communications but when it is question'd to fettle him in the one exercise or the other he must regard that which is conformable to his vocation and above all consider what is consonant to the state of Christianity for he must more satisfie and regard himself as a Christian then as a Gentleman or Merchant c. he must offer himself to God and do his will and finally receive the motions God shall operate in his soul and accordingly seek alwayes the glory of God never minding his own particular advantage And in as much as great difficulties ordinarily happen herein we take for a second document the necessity we have to ask counsel and to take a Director for this is an affair of very great consequence seeing it acts towards the salvation of the soul. And the chief of this affair consists in conducting Christians in the wayes which God hath established
hope must sow in the spirit as the Apostle sayes and do actions worthy so great a recompence This is the way that this third part sheweth where are deduced and advanced those dispositions and vertues which lead us to this estate and to make us perfect Indeed many other vertues might be proposed but these contain all and infallibly guide to the estate God requires of us Faith makes us know and esteem of God it shews us the way to God and leads us to the knowledge of our selves this knowledge draws us to humility that humbles us and disposes us to receive God the good desire if it be efficacious draws us to God purity makes us worthy of God and self-deniall brings to the fulness of God He that hath God hath all he is perfect and he that hath not God is nothing and hath nothing Do what he can though he should do miracles as Iudas probably did he can do nothing that is perfect no work worthy of heaven for it is God onely that works in us the works of grace and who is the principle of our merits which must be well noted therefore he that will be saved and become a perfect Christian must aim only at this point All that we have proposed serve hereunto The first thing demanded is to endeavour to have a good foundation and a sincere uncorrupted interiour to conduct us according to the principles of Faith and the maximes of Christianity to regard God in all things to please him or at least not to displease him with particular care to annihilate the spirit of Adam and the spirit of the world for they are enemies to God they can no more dwell together then Iacob and Esau. After all these dispositions the soul must depend upon God and be wholly left to his operations and conduct and be very vigilant to shew her self faithfull to correspond with the graces and operations of God and not to withdraw her self from his conduct and the order he would take with her This last point is of great consequence and deserves to be a little more insisted upon for it is the last touch we shall give to the Image of a perfect Christian. We must observe that in the order of grace it is not as in the order of Nature In nature that which is most dependant on it's cause is the most imperfect as the sound and voice which is so dependant on its cause that it ceases to be when it ceases to be produced In nature that is esteemed most perfect which hath the least dependance It is otherwise in the state of grace that is most perfect which is neerest and the most dependant on its cause and principle God so that he that tends to perfection must be in a great dependance on God and not act but in this disposition and by a generall resignation of himself to God To put and establish himself in this estate he must have a pure regard of God that is he must hold all of God and have no other object but God in his thoughts or actions When he perceives any care desire motion c. arising in him which he believes not to be of God he must annihilate and renounce it protesting to will nothing but him and the accomplishment of his divine will A soul that would live in resignation and in a true dependance on God must live in the unity of the object that is having regard only to God herein consists the true dependance whereof we speak she must not go out of this disposition to regard what she doth or what she shall do not so much as what may happen to her upon any manner of occasion she shall have all care possibly that she enter not into these thoughts contradictions and afflictions wherein she is or which may happen to her but she must receive all from the hand of God with gentleness and patience regarding him as the Authour of all things and submiting her self in all and by all to his most amiable will saying with a fervent spirit What have I in heaven or what have I desired in the earth besides thee my Iesus It is not sufficient for her to be in this interiour disposition nor that in prayer or her good desire she remain in this nakedness but she must also walk in the spirit of simplicity by an exteriour conduct abandoning and remitting her actions and affairs and all manner of success to the good pleasure of God with a perfect confidence in the love and divine providence of Iesus not seeking in any thing either satisfaction or profit much less cansolation but desiring purely to please God and to be wholly to him according as he hath ordained her To make this disposition more perfect she must not onely submit her actions to the pure will of God but also all her secret and smallest motions as well of nature as of grace that so she may be wholly resigned to God and in a bare and simple dependance It is not necessary that she regard her progress and advantage nor that she desire to be perfect but onely that by esteem respect and confiding in the love of Iesus she abandon her self entirely and purely to the care and prudence that he hath for her To conclude as the soul most purely walks in the wayes wherein God will lead her so must she also endeavovr to follow the light of Faith and maximes of Iesus Christ which shall serve her as a guide thus shall her heart become pure and neat having no other intention nor other hope but to be to God and to please God caring for nothing else she shall fill her spirit with a great esteem of God and respect to his greatness and the infinite power of the divinity and sense of her own meanness and in the spirit of humility abandon her self to Iesus Christ to be wholly to him and to live altogether in a dependance on his holy will and divine Ordinances The soul living in these dispositions it will be easie to avoyd all sorts of disquiets she shall remain in a holy indifferency she shall not trouble her self with her ordinary imperfections neither take care to change or not to change to converse hold or be conducted by this or that She shall be so little sensible of parents her friends her desires yea the supernaturall graces and all things that her onely regard being to God on whom she depends and to whom she is wholly abandoned her only solace end and contentment shall be to please him and to leave her self to the perfect and pure submission of her will to the conduct of God and his divine wisdome For want of this disposition there are many alas too many who live in disquiet perplexity and agitations of spirit The want of this vertue causing so many complaints and repinings so many inward and outward difficulties among souls who follow devotion so many cares doubts desires and propositions which proceed not from the
to advance them to perfection worthy of the purity and sanctity of Christianity and which may render them worthy of God and capable to enter into the glory that God hath prepared for them to all eternity This conduct must not be indifferent but the same with that of God The Director must not guide after one manner and God after another for so the poor soul were lost or tyranniz'd over He that giveth counsel must take heed that the matter he treats of have an immediate respect to the order and designs of God over our souls and consider that he is upon either the ruine or establishment of grace and works of God a point of great consequence which makes us see what they ought to be whom God hath established in so high an office and who enter into so sacred a ministry He that will conduct and counsel a soul must know the designes and conduct of God over this soul he must consider the order God keeps to govern it that it is great and hidden in God that it is a secret to us and that the soul cannot without much difficulty know it It is necessary that he who conducts and counsells be full of grace and light that he strongly adhere to God who is the Father of lights otherwise what knowledge or experience soever he may have he will be deceived in the conduct The more he shall be able and experienced the more he shall be in hazard to deceive souls for though knowledge and experience be necessary yet must we not confide therein much less presume thereupon for God abhors the presumptuous and forsakes those who are over-confident of themselves In the conduct of souls there must always be new succours from heaven and new lights He who would conduct or counsell another in that which concerns his conscience must remember himself that he is an Instrument of God that he must not either counsel or act in this soul but what God will establish therein Moreover he that conducts a soul and who giveth counsel must consider that in truth and in conscience he ought to have no other intention or desire then to follow the very truth to establish the Kingdom of God in the soul to lead the soul to God and to do in that soul the work of God according to the intention of God and to establish nothing therein but what God will For which reason he is obliged to labour much to the end that he may annihilate in the soul of any Christian whatsoever hinders the work of God and kingdom of grace and for his part he must have a right intention and pure regard of God not respecting or desiring any thing but his glory seeking neither honour nor esteem favour nor advantage of those whom he conducts And truly if we consider what it is to conduct a soul in the design of God and to conserve it in the order which God hath appointed it from all eternity we shall see that it is no indifferent business but the most noble and most important of all and that we must apply our selves thereto with exceeding great charity with purity of intentions and a zeal to Gods glory for it is for this that principally they who conduct shall render an account Hence proceed the evil which falls out when those who conduct lead and counsel souls negligently and with indifference without endeavouring to find out what God requires of them in what state or condition soever they be and without troubling themselves to establish therein the Kingdom of God and of his grace and we see in what danger souls are when they conduct them according to their own sense or lead them by those wayes give them the same exercises form them by their own spirit and which is worse mold them to their own humour We must proceed quite otherwise for souls have different wayes and are called to divers states of graces as they are predestinated to divers degrees of glory and consequently he must conduct them according to the designes of God which he must endeavour to know and according to their vocation and he must comport himself in the conduct of every soul in the same manner as if he did know from point to point the decrees which the eternall wisdom hath formed upon this soul and all the particular wayes whereby God leads them To know things so secret and so hidden it is needfull to have the spirit of God to use much prayer and to have a great purity of intention I say purity of intention For he who takes upon him the conduct of souls and will counsel and direct the consciences of men must take heed that he follow not his own spirit that he think not of his own interests that he seek not his own satisfaction and suffer not himself to be carried away with complacency and naturall motions and inclination For in such a case he may be assured that it is no longer God that conducts the soul nor the Spirit of God that governs it but it is the spirit of man and by this manner of conduct he shall not establish the grace or kingdom of God but the flesh the kingdom of sin He who conducts holds the place of God both in the soul and in the conduct so that this were to do great wrong to the grace power and Majesty of God If we say there is danger in the soul that conducts it self that follows her own spirit self-love inclinations humour and will which Saint Paul calls the desire of the flesh we must also affirm that the danger is greater when he who conducts suffers himself to be carried away with his own inclinations and onely follows his own will and spirit And if the Christian be obliged as we have shewed to seek nothing in all his actions but to please God if he must have a particular vigilancy to establish the Kingdom of God in his soul to cooperate with his work and to remain in the order wherein he conducts him with far greater reason he who conducts a Christian soul in any profession or condition is obliged to have the same vigilancy the same purity of intention and regard of God which he ought often to consider From all these truths we may easily comprehend how much they are deceived who are guided by their own nature according to the inclinations and motions of their own spirit without considering what Iesus Christ demands of them without any regard of the grace that God presents unto them yea without taking heed to the state whereto God hath called them As likewise their error who can bear nothing but what is pleasing to them nor agree with any but those that flatter them and suffer them to live at their own pleasure and who best accommodate them to their inclinations desires humours and such things which are but too too ordinary All this is dangerous and an evident mark that such souls seek not God nor true vertue but
makes of them Iesus Christ wills his Apostles speaking to them of sufferings to receive them without fear and with esteem and wills that they be unto them sweet and pleasing Because saith he the hairs of your head are numbred and not one of them shall fall to the ground without the will of your Father He said that God is our Father to engrave in our hearts a respect confidence and love He sayes that our hairs are numbred and that he keeps an account of them to perswade us that Gods care of us is great and that he hath a care of us even to the least things In brief he saith that a hair shall not fall to the ground without his order to shew that all the losses privations sufferings all events loss of goods of honour of life happen not but by the order of God who is our Father What greater reason to esteem sufferings and to conduct our souls to peace and repose amidst the perplexities of the world then the assurance of Iesus Christ It is enough for a Christian if he be a Christian when Iesus Christ sayes to him Fear not for a hair shall not fall to the ground without your Father how full of love and consolation are the words of Saint Paul to the Ephesians I beseech you that you walk worthy the vocation wherewith ye are called The Reason he adds There is but one Lord one faith one Baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all These words are sufficient to establish us christianly in the spirit of suffering and to make us to bear all with sweetness peace and tranquillity of spirit even with esteem and respect We need no other object for our eyes nor other thought in our heart but there is but one Lord this Lord is God this God is our Father this Father is above all In these words we shall learn in what respect subjection and esteem we ought to be in all the contrarieties and sufferings of humane life Secondly We may look upon the state of Christianity and examine what is the essence of the true spirit of piety we shall find that sufferings is the principall its life and its continuance and its maintenance My Son sayes the wise man going to the service of God keep thy self just and in fear and prepare thy soul to temptation adding Take all that shall be imposed on thee suffer pain with patience and humility St. Paul more clearly describes this when speaking of the persecutions he had suffered he adds And all those also who will live godly in Iesus Christ shall suffer persecution which must be understood of all sorts of sufferings both inward and outward For the life of a Christian is no other then the life of Iesus Christ the spirit of Christianity This is the spirit of Iesus or in the common phrase the spirit of grace Jesus was alwayes in humiliation and sufferings he loved from all eternity seeing that from all eternity he was resolved to be man he is reinvested therein becoming man humiliation and sufferings were the centre of his life It is enough to honour pains humiliation and sufferings to say that Iesus Christ hath born them and as the Christian must be the image of Iesus Christ so must he bear with Iesus Christ all sorts of commotions pains humiliations and sufferings As we have born the earthly Image of the earthly Adam let us also bear the image of the heavenly saith the Apostle meaning that we must reinvest us with his Vertues that our life may be an express image of his life which appearing alwayes in desertions lowness and sufferings so ours must be but the same state of sufferings What honour is it to a Christian to weare the Livery of Iesus Christ what happiness to follow his steps we are his members he is our Head were it not a shame to see the body decked with flowers bathed in delights and the head crowned with Thorns we are his Brethren and must possess one heritage with him is it not reason then that we should be like him and imitate his conflicts if we would participate of his Triumphs We are co-heires with Iesus Christ saith the Apostle if we suffer with him that we may be also glorified with him Whatsoever it be the Sonne of God hath so ordered it in Christianity that he that will follow him must renounce himself and take up his Crosse. They are deceived who think to attain true piety with delights who refuse all sorts of pains and mortifications who take care for peace repose and health who onely study to frame to themselves an easie life and seek for ease in their labours and quiet in their spirits and think thereby to make a great progress in perfection No no! vertue walks onely amongst the thorns and amidst the travails of the spirit of flesh and the vices of the world She must tame her self by watchings and mortifications and the happiness of a Christian is onely in the Crosse. It is the Livery of the Children of God the mark of their election the Plummet of their fidelity and the onely way of Heaven for saith St. Paul We must enter into the Kingdom of God through many tribulations The third reason is that the grace of Christianity can operate no other effect then annihilation and suffering for to be in grace is to be subject to graces and to be in the Kingdom of grace that is to be in the Crosse. For so much as the soul hath of grace so much she must have of the Crosse. The Fathers of the Church call the life of a perfect Christian a hidden Martyrdom which is easie to conceive if we consider that the spirit of Christianity consisteth in a crucifying love a love like that of the spouse who cryes I charge you O ye Daughters of Ierusalem if you find my beloved that you tell him that I am sick of love love which pierceth the soul which transports and transforms it into its object Iesus love which combates sufferings and triumphs over death Behold this combate of love God loves us gives us his love makes us suffer to prove the faithfulness of our love the soul that suffereth because she loves willingly throwes her self into sufferings and defies all labours that in her sufferings she may express her love Iesus did so at the evening of his death when he went to sacrifice himself upon the Altar of the Crosse when he said to his Apostles To the end the World may know that I love my Father and do as he hath commanded me arise and let us go hence whence he went to the Garden of Olives to deliver himself willingly into the hands of his enemies where he shewed that love was the cause of his sufferings his sufferings the marks of his love Howsoever it be to be a Christian and not to love God cannot stand together and
souls to his Sonne he adds Every man that hath heard of the Father cometh unto me These words include the secrets of grace and are full of Mystery They teach us that the eternall Father by his grace drawes us and guides us to his Sonne he speaks to us by his inspirations in the interiour of our souls he shewes us that we are Iesus Christ's Is not this to say all that we have proposed That the design of God to save us is no other then to give us his Sonne to unite us to him by the powerfull attractions of his grace and to cause us to adhere to him by love and the exercises of a life truly christian herein doth true piety consist We must therefore continually elevate our hearts and spirits to this Iesus the onely happiness of our souls we must entreat him to accomplish in us the designs of his Father and to take an absolute power over us We must so offer our selves to him as to have no other intention will nor conduct but his that we may by a true relation verifie what Saint Paul said All is yours you are Christs and Christ is Gods Let us so think of him and so do that from henceforth our hearts and mouths may neither speak nor think but of him that all things else may be of no savour to us that nothing enter our spirit which resenteth not the spirit and odor of Iesus Christ and respires not his honour and glory In a word let us adhere to him and by an indissoluble and eternall union dwell in him that he may dwell in us that we may eternally bear the effect of his holy word He that is joyned unto the Lord is the one spirit O how happy is the soul that is called to this happiness and that is truly in the power of Iesus in the possession of his spirit and direction of his grace This is the state whereto Christian perfection must arrive the foundation of piety and true devotion But because many think not of it and many know it not we must treat of it more at large and propose the motives that most oblige us to this Devotion CHAP. III. Of Piety to Iesus Christ and its principall effects WHAT we have already said of the Sonne of God is sufficient to make us know what we owe unto him but the importance of this subject requires that for our better information we explain particularly the principles of this piety and the meanes necessary to attain it But before we enter into this subject we must consider that devotion to the Sonne of God wherein we are to imitate all Christians is not so to limit our souls as to withdraw them from what they owe to God but on the contrary the exercise of this piety is necessary to conduct us more worthily and holily to God because by piety to the Sonne of God we attain a capacity and power to honour God Iesus Christ is our way by him alone we go to God he is our life by him we live the life of grace a life which onely makes us worthy to honour God He is our Truth in him alone as the spirit of truth we know God we adore him and serve him in truth according to the Apostle he is our All in him and by him we have all things by the Son the Father gives us all and by the Son we render all to the Father This is the gift we receive of God and the gift we give to God for all is operated and subsists in the unity of Iesus Christ. The Church offers nothing to demands nothing of the blessed Trinity but by Iesus Christ. We must imitate the Church in pious customs Piety to Iesus Christ requires not so much exteriour exercises as interiour and permanent estate doth in our souls nor demands it any novelty of affection but a newness of spirit a new disposition enclining our souls to employ themselves in the thought of Iesus Christ to regard him to love him to honour him as the object and end of our life actions and devotions It requires that the actions of the religious should be devout those of the ordinary Christians vertuous those of a private person familiar in this object without changing his spirit but directing his intentions and dispositions to the pure regard of the Son of God For example let us do all that we do by the spirit of honour and love to Iesus Christ if we suffer let it be to imitate and render honour to his sufferings what ever happens to us let us receive it by a dependance on and submission to his power and conduct If we will insist upon any good thoughts let it be of Iesus Christ to consider his greatness the mysteries of his life his vertues his benefits and the power he hath over us By these sweet entertainments by these regards of honour and love the perfect Christian advances himself is confirm'd in the piety we speak of To know what this piety is and how we must apply our selves thereto let us consider that Iesus Christ is the principle the centre the end of all Christian souls for as faith teaches us he is the cause of all the good that is in us the spring of all the graces we possess Author of the life which we live in Christianity and being the principle he is also consequently the end thereof For according to the order established in nature that which is the principle of a thing is also its end and nature follows invariably the order God hath prefixt and by his well ordered motions gently leads and if not diverted infallibly conducts all things to the principle whence she draws them So the waters saith the Wise man return to the ocean as to their mothers womb and according to the mysteries of faith we say all things return to God because they all came out of God It is the same in the estate of grace If then Iesus Christ be the principle of the being life and state of Christianity he must be also the end so that our being life and estate regard the same Iesus Christ and are referred to him as the end and if the end the centre also of a Christian life In him our souls find their repose and perfection in him by him and of him are all things saith Saint Paul This Principle alone considered shews us that Iesus Christ hath full power over us that we are his not only in respect of his divine greatness and supreme power over all as God Saviour and Redeemer as purchaser of us with his most precious blood and his of life-giving death but also because he is the principle centre and end of the life and state of Christianity In this relation he hath soveraign power over us having given us being and grace consecrated us to his glory and honour in such absolute manner that the Christian cannot make use either of himself or any
prone to evil being taken out of nothing it hath an inclination to that nothing whence it came to re-enter thereinto and would infallibly return thereto if the arm of God who created it did not withhold and sustain it Nay this evill inclination of our being would not onely return to nothing but to a nothing that is rebellious against God that is to sin which hath no other Originall but if we may so express it the meanness of our being which annihilateth all that God puts into us The creature being drawn from nothing inclines to evill if grace stay him not saith St. Gregory This is evident in the fall of Angels and the first man which can onely be attributed to this nothing whence they were drawn and which by a secret power attracts them to it self For before sin there was not in these two natures any perverse inclination But if this were in two natures so perfectly accomplish'd what ought not we to fear who are not onely in this nothing but after a manner much more miserable without light without grace in a depraved nature by the evill inclinations of our being we have in us the source of all evills The senses and thoughts of the heart of man as the holy Text saith are inclined to evill continually which ought continually to humble us at the feet of the Sonne of God calling upon him to sustain and preserve us and never to suffer us to be separated from him The inclinations and evill habits that are in us the effects and estates of originall sinne which are fixt to our nature and self-love therein are the second enemies which continually endeavour our ruine and separation from God The reason is that our own inclinations and nature are easily fix'd on created things as being of the same order and condition These applications are defective and divide us from God but the greatest evill proceeds from this that our nature is subject to the Law of sin and tyrannicall concupiscence as long as we live upon earth it is subject to the curse and power of sin as being the nature of Adam a cursed rebellious nature wholly opposite to Iesus Christ. What therefore proceeds from so bad a beginning which of itself can produce no good is not onely to be suspected such but partaking of the quality of its fountain separates us from God so that those who follow the motions and inclinations of the flesh are immediately divided from God Those that are in the flesh saith St. Paul cannot please God and doubtless the more they follow their own inclinations and desires the more they are separated The Christian therefore who would be perfect and begins to live in the exercises of true Christian piety must oppose and annihilate his motions and inclinations or at least not follow them for they are the inclinations of the man Adam but must comply with the inclinations of Iesus Christ that is resign himself to his divine conduct who rules us by his providence assists us with his grace and acts in us by his spirit Where the best remedy against this danger is to preserve our selves in an adherence and dependance upon Iesus Christ who by the mercy and power of his spirit can suppress the tyranny of sin and preserve us from the dominion it usurpeth over us as over a nature it hath a right unto Hence the holy Scriptures call the Son of God him that easily taketh off the yoke of sin he alone by his grace fortifies our souls making them able to resist without being engaged therein the power of sin to defend them from its violence By this it appeares how much it concerns those who exercise themselves in true Christian actions to acquire solid piety that they may depend on and adhere to Iesus Christ seeing that if they do not they are the slaves of sin and chain'd to their own inclinations which separate them from God The third of our enemies is the World which conspires our ruine and by the hate it beares to Iesus Christ continually endeavours to separate us from him either deceiving us by its allurements or discouraging us by derision and opposition or forcing us from our duties by persecution for hating Iesus Christ it consequently persecutes all his The World hateth me sayes the Son of God because I testifie of it that the works thereof are evill And if the World hate him with an irreconcileable hatred it can do nothing lesse then separate us from him and disswade us from all that may be pleasing to him The Apostle assures us that all who will live godly in Christ Iesus must suffer persecution This they must all look for who desire to serve God and exercise themselves in true piety assuredly the World will arm it self against them using all manner of insinuations allurements and importunities that may be and practising all the artifices it can to separate them from Iesus Christ. This persecution can never cease for the hate shall endure for ever which should engage the Christian to look upon himself in this World as exposed to the malice and surprises of his mortall enemies He must therefore prepare himself for danger wherever he is or shall be while he lives and following the Counsel of the Son of God he must watch and pray least he be overcome by these assaults and surprised by those many dangerous temptations When we speak of the World we include all the creatures whereof it consists they all separate us from Iesus Christ not onely by the ill use we may make of them but in some manner by the lawfull This is manifest for the more the soul is united to and employed in the Creature the greater distance is there between her and her Creator The creature hath an attractive power to withdraw us and we have an inclination which carries us thereto whence we may easily be deceived by it even in the lawfull use thereof either by adherence or engagement by complacency or satisfaction and a thousand other wayes Besides that every Creature being subject to change and vanity they are the words of the Apostle himself it must necessarily imprint in our souls inconstancy and vanity which is much to be considered especially by those who seek perfection We must therefore hold it a certain Maxime that the more commerce we have with the World and the Creatures the more we are separated from Iesus Christ the more we are taken up with the creatures and our selves the lesse we are with Iesus Christ. Which if it be so may we not justly say the Earth is covered with our enemies and that we are in a place of combat and temptations and that every where is danger It concerns us then to walk with great vigilancy and continuall humility for on every side we see nothing but ambushes to surprise us every where snares to entrap us Adam was tempted even by an Apple we have all objects of temptation his was